The Raven in the Woods
by K. Elisabeth
Summary: The Squints try to solve a case of a cheerleader found dead in the woods. Meanwhile Brennan is still coming to grips with the loss of Zack, and her new intern tries to put the moves on our favorite FBI agent. B/B :
1. Stuck in a Never Ending Sleep

**Chapter 1**

"Alright Za—er, Stacy, what have we got?" Dr. Temperance Brennan asked, catching herself mid-sentence as she swiped her card and stepped up onto the platform. The vast, vaulted windows of the Jeffersonian showed an extraordinarily clear morning, shafts of rising sunlight illuminating a badly decomposed body lain out on the table. Brennan's current rotating intern, Stacy Dayton, smiled brightly as Brennan approached the remains.

"Female, late teens to early twenties, dead for… a while," the simpering blonde recited, acknowledging the advanced tissue decomposition.

"A while is not a definitive answer, I need a time frame," Bones said, pursing her lips and not bothering to look up at the girl as she examined the remains.

"Dr. Hodgins is examining the beetles found in the dirt beneath the remains right now, Dr. Brennan," the girl replied sheepishly. "He should know about how long the victim's been de—"

"Bones," a gruff voice called out from across the cavernous room. Brennan turned to see her partner, Special Agent Seeley Booth, striding through the automatic doors, the heels of his shoes clicking against the floor rhythmically.

"That was fast," Brennan said, acknowledging his presence with a raise of the eyebrows.

"You said we had a murder; I hear murder, I run like the Beggin' Strips dog," Booth said with a lopsided grin. Brennan furrowed her brows.

"I don't know what that means," she said, but the intern laughed.

"I love those commercials!" she said, smiling at Booth.

"Me too!" he said. "That goofy dog voice gets me every time. 'It's bacoooon!' I love it!"

"That's great," she laughed. "By the way, I'm Stacy. Stacy Dayton," she said, offering a hand. "I'm Dr. Brennan's new intern."

"Currently," Brennan added. Booth shook Stacy's hand and nodded.

"Special Agent Seeley Booth," he replied.

"Nice to meet you Agent Booth," Stacy said.

"And you," he replied, smiling down at the petite blonde who very much resembled his son's mother.

"So," Brennan said loudly, interrupting the meet-and-greet. "Do we know anything else about our victim besides an approximate age and gender?"

"Which is?" Booth asked.

"Fe—"

"Female," Stacy announced, interrupting Brennan bravely. "Female, late teens or early twenties. Dead for a while," she said, avoiding Brennan's harsh gaze.

"I'd say," Booth said with a grimace.

"Almost a month," a voice called from the other side of the room. Hodgins stepped onto the platform, a jar of active beetles in hand. "At least, that's about the time when these little guys show up for left-overs."

"Thank you, Hodgins," Brennan said, nodding. "Female, early twenties, died approximately a month ago. Anything else?"

"I'm no expert, but—" Booth started, before Brennan cut him off.

"I wasn't asking _you_," she said, eyeballing him. "Stacy, anything else?"

"Er, not that I saw," she said nervously.

"Did you take a look at the clothing and other personal items found on the body at the crime scene?" Brennan asked, and Stacy shook her head.

"I thought I was just supposed to look at the bones," she said, to which Brennan sighed audibly. Booth cocked an eyebrow.

"Well what the hell gave you that idea?" Brennan hissed, leaving the platform temporarily to retrieve a bag of personal affects—clothes, jewelry, and a purse stripped of all valuables, including any form of I.D. Booth took a slight step back as Brennan set the bag of belongings down on another tray, unzipping it and laying the objects out on display.

"You're a forensic anthropologist. Any pre-med student can look at a bunch of broken bones and tell you what happened to the body; your job is to investigate the _person_, not just the skeleton. A whole person isn't made up of just their bones," Brennan admonished. Stacy nodded.

"Right, sorry," she mumbled, looking down at the victim's belongings.

"She was found in a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt with an athletic logo on the front," Brennan said, switching gears quickly as she sifted through the artifacts.

"Hey, she was a Baltimore fan," Booth pointed out, noting the specific 'athletic logo' on the bloodstained shirt.

"Go Ravens," Stacy said playfully, grinning at Booth.

"Stacy, since we have no need for the remaining soft tissue, take the bones and clean them thoroughly for further examination," Brennan ordered, stepping between Stacy and Booth. Stacy nodded, unlocking the wheels and rolling the tray down the ramp and into the adjoining room. "And don't mess up my bones!" she shouted after the intern just as the automatic doors sealed shut.

"What's your deal?" Booth asked as soon as Stacy was out of earshot.

"What do you mean, what's my 'deal'?" Brennan asked, sifting through receipts, gum wrappers, and other various purse detritus.

"With your intern," he clarified.

"What about her?" she asked.

"You're kind of mean to her," he said. Brennan looked up.

"I'm not mean," she said. "I'm stern. She acts like this is a high school biology lab, and it's not."

"She seemed to me like she knew what was going on," Booth said, to which Brennan scoffed loudly.

"That's only because you hardly know what's going on either," Brennan said, to which Booth scowled. His brooding gaze broke, however, when Brennan held up a beaded bracelet with an engraved silver heart dangling from it.

"Can you read what's engraved on the heart?" Brennan asked. Booth squinted at the writing, but couldn't make it out; the entire bracelet was covered in a thick layer of dried blood. He shook his head.

"Here, hand me that bottle of cleaning solution," Brennan said, motioning towards a rack filled with various tubes and bottles. Booth grabbed the closest one to him.

"Not _that_ one, the other one," Brennan said. Booth grabbed the squirt bottle next to his original choice and, by chance, selected the right one. Brennan laid the bracelet out on a clean metal pan and sprayed it gently with the cleaning solution. Once the solution ran clean, she picked it up and patted it dry with a gauze pad.

"S.N.M.," she said aloud, reading the swoopy lettering on the heart.

"Sorry, I'm not really into that kind of thing," Booth said, giving Brennan a minute to grasp what he had just said before he burst into tickled laughter.

"What? No! S.N.M. are her initi—oh, you knew what I…" Brennan closed her eyes and shook her head, sighing.

"Angela, check the system for a female, early twenties, with the initials S.N.M.," Brennan called out.

"Alright sweetie," Angela said with a wicked grin, having overheard their recent conversation.

"Thanks," she said, still shaking her head. Booth elbowed her ribs playfully, still laughing at his own joke.

"Come on, you know it was funny," he said, and Brennan finally broke a smile.

"Yeah, yeah," she said. She had just sealed the bracelet into a new evidence bag when she heard Angela's door swing open.

"I've got a match," Angela said, and Brennan looked up.

"Who is she?" Brennan asked.

"Sarah Nicole McLeod," Angela replied. "Went missing a month ago. Info says she was called in as missing by her boss when she didn't come into work two days in a row. No sign in the apartment or parking garage of a violent attack."

"Well it sure doesn't look that way from here," Brennan said quietly to herself, looking down at the crime scene photographs, remembering her struggle to dig out all the fragments of shattered skull from the ground below.


	2. A Reason For the Way Things Have to Be

**A/N:** Thanks for the positive reviews on the first chapter! I was a little worried about it, this being my first Bones fic, but apparently you like it so far. :) I took a few liberties with this chapter in regards to the inner workings of the Baltimore Ravens' cheerleading clinic. The cheerleading coach has been totally fabricated from scratch so as not to misrepresent a living person... in layman's terms, Coach Mary Collins is entirely fictitious. Read: fake. False. Made up. She exists neither in reality nor in Fox's "Bones". So please don't comment me telling me that she isn't the coach of the Baltimore Ravens' cheerleaders... because I know. xD Concrit is amazing, so share the love and tell me what you think!

--

Brennan leaned her forehead against the tinted window of Booth's SUV, feeling the vibrations of the wheels rolling over the highway. They were en-route to Owings Mills, Maryland to begin questioning potential suspects; trying to scratch up some starting ground. They didn't have much to go on.

"Whad'ya think we'll find when we get there?" Booth asked, breaking the long silence.

"Cheerleaders, I'm sure," Brennan said.

"Well geez Bones, we're going to the Baltimore Ravens' cheerleading practice, I figured we'd see at least one of those," Booth quipped, smiling and looking in Brennan's direction. His smile fell when he saw no response.

"I meant, what kind of dirt do you think we'll dig up when we get there?" he clarified.

"I don't know, that's really more your area of expertise," Brennan said, continuing to stare out the window. Booth made a small "o" with his mouth, taking her short answer as a signal to shut up. They rode in awkward silence for several more miles before Booth finally spoke again.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked abruptly.

"Nothing," Brennan replied lightly, leaning her chin against the heel of her hand, focusing and unfocusing her eyes as she gazed out the car window. A blur of trees, her reflection, a blur of trees again.

"Don't give me that," Booth said, rolling his eyes. "You women are all alike; you say 'nothing' when you really mean 'everything'. So, what's wrong?"

"I said," Brennan began, turning to face Booth for the first time during the car ride. "Nothing. Nothing is wrong."

"Uh huh," he said, not convinced. "Okay, you don't want to talk about it, I get it. But I will find out."

"There's nothing to find out," Brennan said, turning back to the window.

"Whatever you say Bones," Booth said, merging onto the turnpike and switching lanes. Every thirty seconds or so he shot a sidelong look at the reflection of Brennan's face in the mirror; she looked vast, empty. Like something was missing.

After another awkward silence while navigating the wet roads, Booth finally pulled into an expansive parking lot and stopped the car.

"This is it?" Brennan asked, stepping out of the car and looking up at the structure.

"This is it," Booth said, swelling with an almost father-like pride. "The Baltimore Ravens Training Facility."

"But Sarah McLeod was a childcare assistant," Brennan noted. "Why are we at a football training facility?"

"Because Sarah McLeod had been attending the Baltimore Ravens Cheerleading clinic during the week of her disappearance," Booth explained as they headed towards the facility. "If there's any place to start looking for suspects, this is it. You know how cheerleaders can be," Booth jabbed with a chuckle.

"No, I don't," Brennan said. Booth sighed.

"They're kind of… what's the word… catty," he explained, and Brennan nodded.

"Oh, I understand. Society sets unattainable standards of beauty for young women, causing them to act in personally and socially detrimental ways, lashing out at each other in an attempt to—"

"Yeah yeah, they're mean, right," Booth said, holding the door for Brennan as they entered the facility.

"So if they're the Baltimore Ravens, shouldn't we be in Baltimore?" Brennan asked as the pair headed down one of the many halls.

"No," Booth said, shaking his head as they approached the entrance. "They train here in Owings Mills."

"So why aren't they called the Owings Mills Ravens?" Brennan asked.

"Because," Booth said, sounding slightly exasperated as they turned down another hallway, heels clicking against the shining floors. "The M&T Bank Stadium, where they play, is located in Baltimore. Big cities have NFL teams, not places like Owings Mills."

"Oh," Brennan said. They walked quietly through winding halls, listening for the sounds of weights clanking together and failed stunts—which were always grounds for a chorus of "Oh!" and varied profanities—and following the sounds until they came to the largest gym Brennan had ever seen.

White sneakers scuffed along the waxed gym floor, littered with athletic pads, tape markers, pompoms and signboards. A collection of duffle bags toppled over in the far corner, and several dozen girls in athletic shorts and sports bras congregated around a water dispenser next to the bleachers.

"So this is how they pick their cheerleaders?" Brennan asked as they scanned the gym for the cheerleading coach, Mary Collins.

"Sort of," Booth said, picking out the woman they were searching for and heading in her direction. "They host these clinics just before they have open try-outs. They last a couple of days, and they give the girls a heads up about what to expect; the dance routines, how to dress, what color lipstick to wear…"

"You're kidding me, right?" Brennan asked, making a face.

"Not at all," a fit, tan woman said loudly, holding out a hand as Booth and Brennan approached. She was short, sinewy, perhaps in her fifties. Her hair was spiked and bleached blonde, and she wore wide sunglasses despite the lack of natural sunlight. "I'm Mary Collins, I'm in charge of these girls. Well, most of 'em." Booth took the woman's hand and shook it.

"Seeley Booth, FBI, and this is my partner Dr. Temperance Brennan," he introduced, flashing his badge. Mary's brows furrowed visibly, even behind the glasses.

"What's wrong, is one of my girls in trouble for something?" Mary asked.

"We're investigating the murder of a girl named Sarah McLeod, do you know her?" Brennan asked. Mary Collins stood expressionless for a moment, then her jaw dropped, apparently aghast.

"No, not that little redheaded girl?" Mary implored. Brennan nodded. Mary walked over to the nearby bleachers and took a seat.

"When was the last time you saw Sarah McLeod, Mrs. Collins?" Booth asked, taking a seat next to her.

"The day before try-outs, about a month ago I guess. We have clinic for a week, then on the last day of clinic we host open try-outs for the spots. She came on the last day of clinic but never showed up to try-outs; I thought she'd just chickened out. Oh God…" Mary explained, shaking her head. Booth nodded, scrawling notes messily in a small spiral-bound notebook pulled from his pocket.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Collins. Can you remember if Sarah had any personal issues with anyone on the squad, or at the clinic?" Booth asked. Mary shook her head.

"I don't get into their personal business much, Agent Booth. I tell 'em if they wanna scrap, take it outside and don't let me see the bruises. If the drug tests come clean, I don't care much what kind of messy issues they get into in their personal lives. It sounds harsh," she added, noting the look on Brennan's face. "It sounds harsh, but if I played shrink to all of the girls out there with problems, I wouldn't even have time to think."

"We understand, Mrs. Collins. Do you mind if we take a look around, ask some questions?" Booth asked. Mary shook her head.

"Not at all, whatever you need, just ask. God, I can't believe it," she said, still shaking her head and looking down into her upturned palms. "She was good, too. I was gonna put her on the squad. Good little dancer."

"Thank you, Mrs. Collins," Booth said, flipping his notebook shut and standing. "Come on Bones."

The pair walked across the gym, approaching the gaggle of girls around the water dispenser. Each had a paper cone cup in hand, sipping and chatting. The chatter died down to silence as Booth and Brennan approached the group.

"FBI, we need to ask a few questions," Booth said, flashing his badge yet again. The girls cast furtive looks at one-another, and then nodded, almost in unison. Brennan held up a photograph of the victim—a small woman of 20 years, with flaming red hair and a pretty face spattered with freckles.

"Do any of you recognize this girl?" she asked. The cheerleaders looked at one another again, as if waiting for their hive mind to buzz with the answer, before a tall brunette broke the silence.

"That's Sarah, isn't it?" she said tentatively. Some of the others began to nod their agreement.

"You knew her?" Booth asked. The girl shrugged.

"Sort of. I mean, she came to clinic last month but never showed up for try-outs. Why?" she asked, raising her chin slightly to accentuate the question.

"What's your name?" Booth asked rather than responding.

"Bonnie Simmons, why? What happened to Sarah?" she asked.

"Sarah's dead, Bonnie," Brennan said. The girl's pale eyes grew wide and moist, and the air around the group grew static.

"Oh no," she whispered, stepping back and nearly tripping on the bleachers. "Oh God, no, oh God… oh God. What happened to her?"

"All we know is that she was attacked, violently, and her body was dumped at another location," Brennan informed coolly. The girls began to whisper; a unified, shocked hum, one voice indiscernible from the other.

"Let's walk," Booth said to Bonnie, who now had tears running down her cheeks. They walked together, Brennan tagging behind, as Booth continued questioning.

"I can tell you're upset about this, Bonnie, so I have to ask you; what was your relationship with Sarah McLeod?"

"We were friends," she sniffed, wiping her eyes. "We met at the clinic, we were both trying to make the squad. She was so good; she nailed all her stunts, she memorized all the dances before anyone else. She was going to make it for sure," Bonnie said.

"She sounds like a pretty amazing girl," Booth noted. Bonnie nodded, letting lose a fresh stream of tears.

"She was such a good person," she squeaked.

"Was there anyone you can think of who didn't think she was such a great person?" Brennan asked. Booth shot her a look that clearly noted her lack of sensitivity, but Bonnie paused, then gave a small nod.

"Well…" she began, sniffing loudly. "There was another girl at the clinic who was, I dunno, jealous I guess of Sarah. She was always talking about her behind her back, really rude stuff about her weight and all," Bonnie explained.

"But Sarah McLeod was by all measurements a small individual," Brennan argued, and Bonnie shrugged.

"Doesn't matter, some girls are just like that," she said. Booth nodded.

"What's her name?" he asked. Bonnie's eyes flickered over to the group before she answered.

"Faith. Faith Gibbons. She's the one sitting right next to the water cooler," she said, head turned slightly in the direction of the cooler. "She's a real piece of work," Bonnie added, shaking her head. "Nobody likes her, nobody wants her on the squad."

"Alright, thank you Bonnie," Booth said, patting her shoulder. "That's all for now." The girl nodded and turned, walking back towards the group. She was quickly enveloped by the curious girls, eager for any piece of information.

"Looks like we need to bring in Faith Gibbons for questioning," Booth said as he stepped up into the SUV, shutting the door quickly as he felt the first drops of what would become a heavy rain.

"It would appear that way," Brennan answered quietly, resuming her vigil out the passenger's side window. Booth sighed, putting the car into drive and taking off towards the interstate, back to the lab.


	3. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

**A/N: **Just a warning, this chapter is not very heavily related to the case. It is more of an emotional exploration chapter... which we know Bones is awful at and we love watching her flail around in the ocean of emotion. :) Let me know what you think!

--

Rain fell heavily against the windshield of the black SUV as Booth hastily navigated down a winding dirt road. The wipers whipped back and forth in rapid succession, the dull sound of their repetition having an almost hypnotic effect. The vehicle rattled as they rounded bends, slalomed down rocky hills, and crept up steep inclines.

"I don't know why you took us this way," Brennan said, watching the woods pass by as they traveled deeper into rural Maryland.

"Because, Bones," he started, gritting his teeth as he maneuvered around a particularly sharp corner. "The highway was bumper-to-bumper, it would've taken forever to get back to the lab. This way is much quicker."

"It would be much quicker if we weren't lost," Brennan muttered.

"We're not lost!" Booth growled, slamming the brakes as a squirrel jetted across the muddy road. Brennan felt the breath leave her chest as the belt locked and caught her.

"If we're not lost, then where are we?" she asked with a pointed raise of an eyebrow. Booth scowled.

"Maryland," he mumbled.

"More specifically?" Brennan asked.

"A dirt road. I have no idea where we are, okay, is that what you wanted to hear?" he snapped.

"You should've stopped at that last gas station and asked for directions," Brennan said.

"Guys don't ask for directions, Bones. Surely all your anthro-whatever studies clued you in on that," he said. Brennan shrugged.

"It is typical behavior; alpha males must assert their status in their own domain in order to obtain and keep the respect of his clan. Asking for directions, essentially admitting that you are lost in your own territory and unable to function autonomously, is a marked sign of weakness," she prattled. Booth set his jaw.

"Okay, that was for the 'all women are alike' comment, I get it," he said.

"No it wasn't, it's the truth anthropologically speaking," Brennan argued. Booth took his eyes from the road and looked at her.

"You're talking to me again," he said, smiling despite his heated mood. Brennan looked out the window.

"I wasn't ever not talking to you," she said. Booth shook his head.

"Yes you were, you wouldn't say anything to me the whole way to the training center, you just stared out the window. Like that," he said, noting her current behavior. She didn't look back his way.

"See, damn it, you're doing it again!" Booth shouted, jerking the wheel as the road suddenly veered to the right to avoid a cluster of ancient oaks, then dipped down a sharp decline. Brennan grabbed the handlebar on the ceiling of the vehicle to brace herself.

"Booth, pay attention to the road!" Brennan shouted, partly out of anger from his outburst, and partly to be heard over the increasing intensity of the storm.

"Get off my back, I'm doing fine," he growled. She stared at him.

"Why are you so angry with me?" she yelled, face flushed.

"Because you're shutting me out!" Booth yelled back, fighting the car and the storm as the water level beneath the tires grew higher.

"I told you I didn't want to talk about it," Brennan said, and Booth turned to her, the expression on his face a mixture of 'a-ha!' and 'how dare you'.

"So there _is_ something the matter with you!" he said, pointing across the vehicle at her.

"No, I mean, I just don't want to—WATCH OUT!" she screamed, instinctively shielding her face with her arms. Booth turned to see a tangle of overgrown woods directly in his oncoming path. He slammed on the brakes and swerved sharply to the right, attempting to put the car back on the asphalt. The car's brakes locked, and the vehicle began to hydroplane on the poorly paved country road. The vehicle skidded, then fishtailed, spinning uncontrollably until it made contact on the driver's side with a very solid tree.

Brennan still felt that her head was spinning even after the car came to a stop. Her eyes were screwed shut, and before she could open them she felt a hand on her arm.

"Bones, are you okay?" Booth asked, breathing heavily. She opened her eyes and nodded.

"I'm okay," she said. "Are you?"

"All in one piece," he said, but Brennan saw that a cut on his forehead had begun to bleed.

"You're hurt," she said, bringing her hand up to his face. She touched the area around the cut and he grimaced, pulling his head back.

"I'm fine, I've had worse," he assured, looking her up and down. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"A lot better than your car," she said, looking past him to the shattered window, caved in door, and missing side-mirror.

"It's not mine anyway," he said without concern. "FBI issue, they can give me another one. As long as you're okay," he said, voice laced with deep concern.

"I'm fine, I promise," she said, trying to steady her breathing. Her heart was still racing wildly.

"Good," he said with a weak smile. "We can replace the car, but I don't think we can get another one of you."

"There are other forensic anthropologists out there, Booth, I'm not the only one," Brennan said, but Booth shook his head.

"I didn't mean another forensic anthropologist, I meant another Temperance Brennan," he said. Brennan looked down at her lap, smiling. She said nothing, and they were silent for a moment, listening to the rain beat relentlessly against the roof of the car.

"So what do we do?" she finally asked, breaking the reverie. Booth pulled out his phone, flipped it open, then shut it and tossed it into the back seat.

"No bars, we're way out in BFE," he said.

"I don't know what that means," she said.

"BFE. It means we're in the middle of nowhere, where no cell phones work," he explained.

"Oh, like past where Jesus lost his sandals?" she said, remembering Angela's comment in the Nevada desert.

"Sort of, yeah," Booth said, peering out the cracked windshield to the brooding sky above. The rain was still pouring, with no sign of letting up, and without cell phone service there was really no way to tell anyone where they were.

"So do we just wait?" Brennan asked.

"For the rain to stop?"

"Yeah," she said. He nodded.

"That's all we really can do right now, I guess," Booth said.

"What about when the rain stops?" Brennan asked. Booth shrugged.

"Well, I have no idea where we are, there's no GPS in the car, our phones don't work and we passed the last sign of civilization at least 15 miles back," he said, ticking off the items on his left hand. "Right now we're kind of screwed."

"Why don't they put GPS in FBI cars?" Brennan asked. Booth turned to her and smiled.

"I'm not cleared to share that information with you, miss," he said, suppressing laughter.

"Oh shut up," she said, shaking her head and leaning her seat back. She laced her fingers and rested them on her stomach, shutting her eyes.

"So we wait?" she asked. Booth cranked his seat back as she had, and sighed.

"So we wait."

They sat like that in the SUV for half an hour; lost in their own respective thoughts, lulled into relaxation by the heavy raindrops playing against the car, peals of thunder reverberating through the woods on occasion and lightning cracking through the dark sky, illuminating the scene. The sun, what little of it there had been, was sinking fast, so that they soon were hardly able to see each other. Finally, Booth turned on his side and spoke into the darkness.

"Are we going to talk about what's been bothering you?" he asked. No response, no movement; he almost thought she was asleep until he heard her sigh.

"I don't want to, Booth," she said quietly.

"It's not ever going to get better if you don't talk about it," he insisted. More silence. He had all but given up on the idea when she spoke again.

"I miss Zack," she said. It was simple, it was soft, but it was raw.

"I miss him too," Booth said into the darkness that had all but stolen the car and the woods.

"I shouldn't miss him," Brennan said, almost bitterly.

"Why not?" Booth asked, slightly taken aback. Zack had been like family to Brennan, to all of them.

"Because of what he did," she said. "He did something awful, Booth. Really awful. Evil, even."

"Doing bad things doesn't make him a bad person, Bones," Booth offered. He saw the outline of her head in the dark shake in disagreement.

"No, it wasn't just bad, Booth, it was vile. He killed people, killed them and gave them to Gormagon to…" she trailed off, as if she didn't want to verbalize what had actually happened. As if that made it more real.

"He didn't know what he was doing, he wasn't in his right state of mind," Booth protested.

"That's not an excuse! He killed them, took their lives, fed them to a cannibal he made a set of dentures out of human canines for! What about that is forgivable, Booth? What about that is sane, is rational? What about me forgiving that is rational?" Her voice cracked, and she sighed audibly again. Booth looked into the darkness, mind reeling for the same answers.

"It's not," he finally said. He saw Brennan's shadow turn and face him. He continued to look upward at the ceiling as he spoke. "Nothing about killing and eating people is rational, nothing about forgiving someone for that is rational. But you love Zack, Bones. You love him, we all love the kid, and forgiveness is part of loving someone. And love isn't rational."

"It should be," Brennan said thickly through what Booth suspected were suppressed tears.

"It's not," he said.

"But it should be," she repeated. "It doesn't make sense; it should make sense. Killing people is evil, all cultures agree on some level that taking an innocent life is frowned upon. Eating them is, in most parts of the world, socially taboo. By all accounts, what Zack did is evil, Booth. It's evil, it's unforgivable."

"That doesn't make him evil though," Booth said. "He made bad choices, but he's still Zack deep down there somewhere. He did bad things, but he's not evil."

"That doesn't make sense," Brennan whispered. "It's not rational."

"Why are you so bent on everything being so rational all the time?" Booth asked, propping himself up on one elbow, facing her direction. "Ninety-nine percent of the world is irrational, Bones. Outside of your little squint lab, most things in the world _aren't_ going to make sense and be rational. Most of the things people do aren't rational. The best thing in the world, love, is irrational. It's spontaneous; it's every irrational thought you have put together into this huge feeling you can't stop. Nothing about it is rational. Why are you so hung up on it?" There was no reply from Brennan's direction, just heavy breathing.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"Because it's all I've ever had," Brennan said, cutting him off. "Being logical, being rational. It's all I've ever had to hold onto." He heard her break into quiet, stifled sobs, sniffing loudly. He reached his hand into the darkness, touching lightly on her elbow, then following her arm down to her hands. He took her two small, clasped hands in his large, rough hand, enclosed them in his.

"It's not all you have to hold onto, Bones. You have me."


	4. Mine is Not a New Story

**A/N:** I'm glad you enjoyed the warm B/B moments... I did too. :) On with the case!

--

The first thought that ran through Brennan's head when she woke up the next morning was how stiff she felt. She hadn't remembered feeling so creaky since the nights she spent in a Sudanese refugee camp, lying on a cold dirt floor with a dozen other nurses, anthropologists, and humanitarian workers.

She suddenly became aware that, while one hand was nestled next to her cheek when she awoke, the other was still firmly clasped in Booth's warm grip. She looked over and saw him still reclined back in his seat beneath the precarious-looking glass window; the glass had all but shattered, but due to the tinted glaze over the surface it had not yet broken off into pieces. The marvels of modern engineering. His eyes moved beneath the lids: REM sleep. She didn't want to wake him, but they needed to get to the main road and flag down a ride. After a few quiet moments she removed her hand from his grasp, and he woke instantly.

"Hmmm?" he said instinctively, blinking his eyes hard and looking around as if he had temporarily forgotten where he was.

"Not quite a five-star hotel," Brennan said, mood much lighter than the previous night. He had been right; some things do just feel better once you verbalize them. But that was psychology, which she had no use for.

"Yeah, not really," he said, bringing his seat to an upright position and yawning widely. He cracked his neck, shoulders, and elbows.

"You know that's awful for your joints," Brennan pointed out.

"Nah," Booth disagreed, reaching for his door handle but then realizing the irony of the action. Brennan exited out of the passenger's side door, and entertained herself watching Booth's large figure trying to crawl out through her side. Brennan grabbed her purse, and Booth tried again for phone service. Nothing.

"So do we go back the way we came, or keep…" Brennan began, but trailed off when they heard what sounded like helicopters overhead. They looked up and sure enough, within thirty seconds' time a large, black unmarked helicopter passed over them. Booth waved as the craft turned and hovered over their area. The sliding door on the aerial machine opened, letting down a ladder and a uniform-clad man.

"Davis," Booth said with a grin, clapping the man on the shoulder. "What the hell are you doing here?" he asked.

"Oh come on Booth, you know how it is when one of us goes missing; they think it's al Qaeda," the uniformed man said, laughing. He turned to Brennan and held out a gloved hand. "Carl Davis, by the way, miss."

"Temperance Brennan," she said bemusedly, shaking his hand. "So you're saying that when Booth shows up late for work, the U.S. Armed Forces sends out a search team?"

"What can I say, he's got people," Davis replied, laughing again. He stepped off the ladder and held it out to Booth, who stepped back and motioned to Brennan.

"Ladies first," he said. She scaled the ladder, followed shortly by Booth and Davis, and before long they were landing on the roof of the Jeffersonian.

"Thanks again, man!" Booth hollered over the roar of the helicopter. Davis nodded and gave him a salute, which he returned. Booth and Brennan descended the stairs to the lab floor, and they had no sooner opened the door than they heard Angela's voice ringing through the cavernous room.

"Okay you two, next time you decide to get a room for the night, let one of us know so we don't worry ourselves sick about you!" she admonished, enveloping Brennan in a hug.

"Next time we get a room for the night, we'll make sure it's not Booth's wrecked car," Brennan said. Angela's eyes widened.

"Sweetie, what happened?" she asked. They launched into the story, and Cam and Hodgins had joined the group by the time they got to the part where the helicopter showed up.

"Wow, nice job man," Hodgins said, clapping Booth on the shoulder and grinning. "Maybe next time you should just ask for directions." Booth gave Hodgins a look that clearly said, 'touch me again and you die', and Hodgins removed his hand quickly.

"Did you guys get any further on the case while we were gone?" Brennan asked, bringing the subject back to work.

"I matched the victim's dental records with Sarah McLeod's just to make sure we had a positive I.D., which we do," Cam said.

"Good, anything else?" Brennan asked.

"I found some fine particulates on the skull fragments after Stacy cleaned them," Hodgins said. "I'm still trying to identify them. They're not from where the body was found, which narrows it down a little."

"Great, keep working on that," Brennan said, slipping into her lab coat and snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. "I'm going to have a look at the bones." Brennan left for the exam room, and was nearly there when she was suddenly cut off.

"Hey Dr. Brennan!" Stacy greeted with an oversized smile. "Where were you guys?"

"Working on the case," she said dryly, sidestepping her and entering the exam room. Stacy tagged along behind her, sliding through the door as it shut.

"Well I knew that silly, I meant why didn't you come back last night?" she asked.

"We had a problem," Brennan said. Stacy eyed her curiously.

"Ooooh," she said teasingly. "A 'problem', huh? Was Booth there?" she asked, growing more interested.

"I need it quiet to concentrate," Brennan said shortly, squinting through her frames at the pieces of skull bone littering the table. Stacy sighed and stood back, watching Brennan work.

"The mandible is fully intact," she muttered to herself, noting the full set of bottom jaw teeth, untouched. "The left maxilla, zygomatic, and optical regions are shattered, as if by a blow from a blunt object." She slowly and methodically glued the pieces of skull together, dabbing Elmer's glue here and there, touching the pieces together, holding them with steady hands until they dried. Stacy finally dared to speak.

"A blunt object… like a two-by-four or something?" she asked. Brennan shrugged.

"Not really. Come look at the skull," she said, inviting the girl to draw nearer, which she did hesitantly. It was unlike Brennan to actually ask her to come closer, and she almost appeared to fear being bitten.

"You see the way the object struck the skull, shallower on the edges and deep in the center? This was a cylindrical object, more like a bat or a pipe," she explained, pointing out the break patterns to her intern, who nodded.

"So maybe a baseball bat?" Stacy asked. Brennan shook her head again.

"The diameter of the weapon is smaller than that of the average aluminum or wooden bat. It looks more like a narrow pipe to me." As if to confirm Brennan's findings, Hodgins entered through the automatic doors.

"I've got an I.D. on the particulates," he said.

"What've we got?" Brennan asked.

"Rust, and what looks like spray paint."

"Thanks Hodgins," she said. "So we're looking for a narrow, rusty metal tube that's been spray-painted."

"A what?" Booth asked, entering the room.

"That's our weapon. A metal tube, narrow, covered in spray paint and rusting."

"Like a baseball bat?" he asked.

"That's what I said!" Stacy chimed, beaming at Booth. Brennan glared darkly in her direction.

"No, _not _like a baseball bat. Narrower."

"Well that's tricky, but we gotta go, Bones; they just brought in Faith Gibbons," he said hurriedly, grabbing Brennan's upper arm and leading her towards the door.

When they arrived at the station to question Faith Gibbons, they saw the same short, dark-skinned girl they had seen standing on the bleachers at the training center, only more angry and disheveled. Her hair was up in a dark, messy bun and she was wearing a Baltimore Ravens t-shirt—the same kind of shirt Sarah was found dead in. Her feet were up in her seat and she was chewing on her nails when Booth and Brennan entered the room

"Do you know why you're here?" Booth asked Faith Gibbons who sat back in her chair with her arms folded, leering in his direction but saying nothing.

"No," she finally said defiantly.

"Did you know Sarah McLeod?" Booth asked. Faith shrugged.

"Sorta," she said. "She was at clinic last month when I was."

"So there was a rivalry between you two?" he asked. Faith laughed; a short, derisive bark more than anything.

"Rivalry? Please. I could cheer her ass up and down the field any day," she said haughtily.

"That's a very self-aggrandizing statement," Brennan said.

"What'd you just call me?" Faith demanded, sitting up in her seat and staring Brennan down.

"She said you're cocky," Booth translated. Faith leaned back in her seat again, tilting her chin up and looking down her nose at Brennan.

"Yeah, so? I'm good. Better than Sarah was," she said matter-of-factly.

"Did everyone think so?" Booth asked.

"I know what you're trying to get at," Faith said. "You want me to say that she was better, so I got jealous and whacked her over the head. Motive, confession, the whole nine yards."

"So is that a confession?" Booth asked. Faith scoffed.

"Hell no it ain't a confession," she said. "I thought Sarah was an overrated bitch, yeah, but I didn't kill her. I'm not that stupid."

"Bonnie seemed to think Sarah was a pretty sweet girl," Booth offered. "You didn't think so?"

"Bonnie would say that," Faith sneered. "Biggest suck-up I ever met. Fakest too; she'll tell you you're her best friend, then throw you to the wolves like that," she said, snapping her fingers in emphasis.

"Did Sarah have a lot of enemies?" Brennan asked. Faith shrugged.

"Not more than anybody else did. I mean she had a bad attitude sometimes, but she was a'ight. Her head just got all big when everyone told her she was a good fly 'cause she's so skinny and all."

"Where were you the night before try-outs?" Booth questioned. Faith smiled.

"Playing cards with my abuelo," she said. "Friday night tradition he started up when I was a kid to keep me out of trouble."

"Abuelo?" Booth asked.

"Grandfather," Brennan translated. Booth nodded.

"So he can confirm that?" he asked.

"I don't think he has to," Brennan said, rising from her seat. "Faith, would you mind standing up for me?" she asked, walking over to the other side of the table. Faith stood up, and Brennan stepped closer to her, until they were toe-to-toe. Faith took a step back.

"What, you gonna hit me or somethin'?" she asked warily.

"No, I want to see how tall you are," Brennan said, stepping closer to her again. The top of Faith's head was level with Brennan's chin.

"Five-nothin'," Faith said, looking up at Brennan. "Geez, how tall are you?"

"Five eight," she said. "Booth, she didn't do it."

"I already told you that!" Faith said. Booth furrowed his brows.

"What? Why not?" he asked.

"She's not tall enough," Brennan said.

"Tell me about it," Faith grumbled.

"How can you tell?" he asked.

"I'll show you when we get back to the lab. Faith, you're free to go," she said.

"Hey, that's my call," Booth said as Faith headed towards the door. She stopped and turned on her heel, arms akimbo. She stared at him for a moment, before he sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Yeah, you can go," he said. "Sheesh Bones, at least let me send them out after you tell 'em they're innocent."

"Sorry," she said. "But she didn't do it, I can show you."

"I believe you Bones," Booth said as they exited the room. "I believe you."

--

**A/N:** If you read, let me know what you think! :)


	5. You Can Do the Math a Thousand Ways

**A/N:** Sorry it's been a few days since my last update... I've been having internet issues, so my own computer's internet is currently out of commission... reducing me to either A) using the public library's computers, or B) swiping my friend's net for a while. Either way, I lack a steady connection, and it's slowly driving me UP THE WALL. Ahem... but anyway. I apologize in advance if there are any inconsistencies between lefts and rights in this chapter... it is very kinesiologically-geared, and while I have read through it several times in attempts to catch any errors, I still may have missed one or two. (I have left/right issues... ever since I was a kid, I can't keep them straight. My parents tried putting a "right hand ring" on my right hand to help me remember, it just didn't work. xD I use the wrong blinker all the time, give people directions backwards... it's pretty bad.) This chapter also makes me feel the need to e-mail my Trig professor and tell her that she was right, I _did _use bearings again in my life outside of class! x) Let me know what you think!

--

When the pair returned to the lab, Cam met them just inside the door.

"Did you catch your killer?" she asked. Booth shook his head.

"Bones says she didn't do it," Booth said. Cam raised an eyebrow.

"So her alibi checked out?" she asked as she joined Booth in following after Brennan as she snaked through the lab, jetting into her office as she passed it and picking up a piece of blank paper from the printer. Booth shrugged.

"I don't know yet, Bones sent her away because she thinks she's innocent," he said, walking alongside Cam as they both followed Brennan's dizzying trail.

"I don't think, I know," Brennan said, sticking her head inside of the lab room where Stacy and Hodgins were currently entertaining themselves with what looked suspiciously like a hunk of Spam.

"Hodgins, Stacy, I need you both now please," she said. Their shoulders slumped.

"But we were just—" Stacy began, but was cut off.

"Now, please," she said. Hodgins smirked.

"But moooom," Hodgins said mockingly, snapping off his gloves and following the growing clique behind Brennan.

"Ange, I need you to enter some data into the Angelator," Brennan said, voice echoing throughout the lab. Soon Angela's head was peering into the dim room where her ingenious machine was set up.

"Yes, sweetie?" she asked, approaching the group that had gathered.

"I need you to enter these values for a re-enactment: two females," Brennan said, reciting from memory. "And the weapon should be a narrow cylindrical pipe, something like this—" Brennan said, demonstrating by twisting the blank piece of printer paper into a tube. Booth took it from her hands and held it up to his eye, peering around the room. Brennan snatched it back and approached Stacy.

"Here, take this," she said, handing the tube to Stacy. "Now go up to Hodgins and smack him in the face with it." Stacy looked shocked, and Hodgins glared.

"Why am I getting smacked?" Hodgins asked.

"Because you're Sarah, and she's Faith," she said.

"Why can't I be Faith?" he argued.

"Because," Brennan said, fighting a smile. "You're taller, so you're Sarah. She's shorter, so she's Faith."

"Is Faith left-handed or right-handed?" Stacy asked.

"Right-handed, the first reason she's innocent," Brennan said. "When our victim was attacked, the pipe made contact with her face in such a way that suggests it was swung like a bat, left-handed. Stacy, hit Hodgins." Stacy shrugged, held the paper tube like a left-handed batter, and thwacked Hodgins in the face with it.

"Was that good?" Stacy asked.

"Yes, that was fine," Brennan said. Stacy beamed with pride for having done something right in the eyes of her mentor, even something as menial as swinging a paper bat.

"So what? She could've swung it lefty-style because that's where Faith was standing relative to her," Booth pointed out.

"Which brings me to my second point," Brennan said. "Angela, simulate the same attack with the weapon coming in from a bearing of three-hundred-and-five degrees to the zygomatic structure, tilted fifteen degrees left of the center of the face. Victim at one-point-four-nine meters, killer at one-point-three-five meters." Angela entered the figures, and another holograph appeared. The cylinder made contact with the face, shattering the bones.

"Okay, so what's the problem?" Booth asked.

"The shattering exhibited in the simulation doesn't match the fragmentation pattern found on the skull," Brennan explained. "On the skull, the damage was almost at a forty-five degree angle left of the center from her nasal bones, crossing the left maxilla and shattering the zygomatic and temporal processes. If someone of Faith's size had attacked her, the damage would have been at a much smaller angle, perhaps fifteen degrees left of the center, and would have done less temporal bone damage."

"In English?" Booth requested.

"In layman's terms—" Brennan began, "—it means that the way the attacker swung at the victim, the weapon came at her face diagonally, almost horizontally across her right cheek. If she had been attacked by someone who was only five feet tall, the weapon would have been swung either upward at her face, coming at her more diagonally, or it would've been swung down forcefully like a tomahawk, hitting her head and face vertically," she said, grabbing the paper tube from Stacy and miming the tomahawk action on Booth's face. He pushed the tube away.

"Yeah okay, thanks, I get it now. Why couldn't you just say that?" he asked, shaking his head. "Sheesh, squints…"

"Anyway," Brennan said, brushing off the comment. "Even if Faith had somehow been on an incline steeped in her favor, leveling her height with the victim, she still wouldn't have been able to generate enough force swinging left-handed to cause the damage to the victim's skull. She couldn't have done it." The room seemed to nod collectively.

"Well I suppose that clears Faith Gibbons, then," Cam said. "So are we back at square one with suspects?"

"Pretty much," Booth said. "Sarah didn't have a steady boyfriend, and she worked as a nanny, small children. She took the week of the clinic off from work anyway. The only people she was reported having contact with the week of her disappearance were her parents, her twelve-year-old sister, and everyone at the cheer clinic."

"We need to go take another look around the training center," Brennan said. "Maybe now that we know what kind of weapon we're looking for, we'll find something."

"Just as long as Booth takes the highway back home this time," Hodgins said, grinning at him from across the Angelator. Booth scowled at him, and he stopped smiling.

"Don't worry, I'm driving this time," Brennan said, walking out of the room with the paper tube still in hand. "Come on, let's go."

"Wait, what? You can't drive," he said, following her across the Medico-Lab atrium and through the automatic doors.

"Well you don't have a car anymore, and we have to get there somehow," Brennan said, pushing the arrow just before the elevator doors glided open.

"But you don't drive. I drive," Booth said emphatically, as if trying to make her see reason.

"You only drive because you never let me! I drove when we went to Los Angeles, and I did fine," she said, stepping out as the elevator doors opened up into the Jeffersonian parking garage.

"Yeah, but—" Booth began before Brennan turned on her heel, standing nose-to-nose with him in the dimly lit garage.

"I'm driving, and that's it," she said forcefully. "You can walk if you don't like it." She turned and unlocked the door of her car, and Booth let out a low whistle, pocketing his hands as he walked around to the passenger's side.

"Fine," he said, letting himself into the sporty vehicle, barely able to sit comfortably without his head grazing the ceiling. "If that's how it's gonna be."

"It is," Brennan said lightly as she buckled her seat belt and started the ignition. "Besides, my car is nicer than yours anyway."

"Oh definitely not!" Booth said, eyes sparkling as the banter began, and lasted throughout the smooth highway ride.

--

**A/N:** Love it? Hate it? Totally confused? Let me know. :)


	6. I'm Your Angel Undercover

**A/N:** Again, I'm sorry for the long weekend wait! Now in addition to having no internet connection... I have a staph infection. Awesome. So I've been mostly lying in bed all day because the broad-spectrum antibiotics they have me on are wiping me out. / But enough whining! This is a fairly long chapter, longer than any of the others so far, but I didn't think it would be right to split it into two separate small chapters or to put the last bit into the next chapter, so I kept it as one. I think it works best that way. And for those of you who are worried about not seeing enough of Stacy... don't worry, she's still there... and so is Sweets in the near future. ;-) Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

--

Brennan and Booth arrived at the Baltimore Ravens' training facility late that afternoon, their shadows elongated by the sun as it crawled westward across the sky. It had hardly been thirty-six hours since the last time they were here, but Brennan believed that armed with their new information they would be better equipped to find what they were looking for. Whatever that may be.

"It's almost six o'clock, you think they'll still be here?" Brennan asked as she and Booth entered the facility, welcoming the blast of cold air as the doors opened.

"The desk clerk on the phone said they practiced until six, so we should be catching them just in time," Booth said. "What are we looking for again?"

"Long metal cylinder, narrower than a bat, and spray-painted," Brennan explained.

"How long?" Booth asked. Brennan approximated a size with her hands, holding them about two and a half feet apart.

"Depending on if it was a man or a woman," she said. "Given the force with which the weapon hit the victim's skull, it's safe to say it was either a man swinging a pipe about two feet long, or a woman swinging a shorter pipe, or choked up on a longer one."

"How can you tell?" Booth asked as they retraced the previous day's path to the gymnasium.

"Simple rotational mechanics," she said. "The greater the force exerted by the person swinging the pipe, the greater the distance from the fulcrum could be to still yield the amount of force applied to the skull. A man can generally swing harder than a woman, so if it was a woman she was either swinging a shorter pipe, or she was choked up on a longer one to shorten the lever arm."

"Oh," Booth said, raising his eyebrows and giving a slight nod. "I guess that makes sense."

"Yes, it does," Brennan said. "And given the height of the attacker, we are probably looking for a woman, about sixty-five or sixty-six inches."

"Or a short guy," Booth said. Brennan nodded.

"Yes, or a short man." The pair entered the gym, and this time their presence did not go unnoticed. The moment the gaggle of cheerleaders spotted them a hush fell over their group, as several pairs of curious eyes tracked them across the gym.

"Agent Booth," Mary Collins said, greeting him with a handshake. "I didn't think we'd be seeing you again so soon."

"We have some new information that might lead us to the murder weapon. Do you mind if we have a look around the training areas utilized by your cheerleaders?" Brennan asked. Mary shook her head.

"Not at all, if you run into a locked door just holler and I'll bring you the key," Mary said.

"Thank you Miss Collins," Booth said, giving her a nod and turning to Brennan. "Okay Bones, where do we start?"

"You start here in the gym, I'm going to go check out the weight room," Brennan said. "And remember, it's a—"

"Long metal pipe, not a baseball bat, spray-painted. Got it," Booth said, taking off towards the other end of the gym to begin his comb-through. Brennan set off in the opposite direction, letting herself into the weight room the cheerleaders often used.

Presently the room was empty, the only sound being the soft blast of the air conditioner. Racks of neatly organized weights lined the walls, with one wall devoted entirely to mirrors. Benches were dispersed throughout the center of the room with two leg-press machines on the far end, sitting as a pair beneath a wall covered in awards for various civic duties. Brennan had to give them credit; they defied the stereotypical "self-absorbed" cheerleading squad, having received accolades for working with the Boys and Girls Club, Special Olympics, Ronald McDonald House, and other various community groups.

"Nothing in the gym," Booth said, appearing in the doorway connecting the two rooms. "Anything here?"

"Nothing," Brennan said, slightly discouraged. "No traces of blood anywhere in the room. It's clean."

"None? That's not right," Booth said, brows scrunched together.

"What do you mean?" Brennan asked. Booth paused before he answered, looking around at the room; the floor, the mirrors, the walls.

"It's too clean," he repeated.

"Well it's an expensive facility, Booth, they keep these gyms clean," Brennan argued. He shook his head.

"Not this clean," he said. "Weight rooms are never this clean. Not one speck of blood, not even on the floor, on the wall, on the end of a weight? That's not right, that's too clean, unless someone was trying to cover up something." He walked one end of the room to the other, looking down at his feet the entire time.

"Look," he finally said, pointing to the corner of the room. Brennan walked over and looked down at the baseboards. They were spotless.

"Yeah, they have a good cleaning service," Brennan said.

"No, they don't," Booth said. "Did you see the entrance when we walked in? Did you look in the halls? None of the other rooms in this entire building are this clean. Not one. Somebody else cleaned this room; scrubbed it, top to bottom."

"That makes sense," Brennan finally agreed, nodding slowly. "But that doesn't mean we can declare this a crime scene."

"No, just a very clean weight room," Booth sighed. "And there's no crime in that." They walked out of the weight room and across the gym, still keeping their eyes peeled for anything they might have missed the first time through.

"I spoke to some of the girls on their way out," Booth said as he watched Brennan get on her hands and knees, looking beneath the bleachers. Part of Booth was irked that she doubted his ability to do a thorough search, but in that moment, watching her, a bigger part of him didn't care.

_Ah, stop,_ he said to himself, shutting his eyes and shoving his hands in his pockets as he turned and faced the opposite way.

"Did you find out anything?" Brennan asked, continuing to scan the floor. Booth spoke to the wall across the gym, refusing to turn around for the time being. Professional courtesy.

"Two of the girls said Sarah supposedly had plans to meet a guy for dinner that night," he said.

"A guy? I thought she wasn't dating anyone," Brennan asked, looking up and seeing the back half of Booth. Part of her was irked that he didn't look her way when he spoke to her; she hated when people didn't look at you when they talked to you. But in that moment, staring at Booth's backside, a bigger part of her didn't care.

_That's not professional,_ she admonished herself in her head, looking down at the floor until she sensed him turn around. When she looked up she felt peculiar, and very hotly aware of the view he had. She subconsciously placed a hand over her chest and stood.

"Uh, she wasn't," Booth said, slightly flustered, rubbing the back of his head. "Apparently they were just 'talking'."

"Talking? I don't know what that means," Brennan said, walking with Booth out of the gym.

"It's slang, Bones. It's what kids say when they're flirting with someone before they start going out. They aren't dating, they're just 'talking'. Get it?"

"Oh, so it implies a sort of courtship between two individuals?" she asked. Booth nodded.

"Yeah, exactly. Courting, talking, tomatoes, potatoes, same thing."

"Tomatoes and potatoes aren't the sa—" Brennan started, but stopped halfway through her sentence, turning on her heel and approaching a large trophy cabinet in the hall outside of the girl's locker area. She pressed her face against the glass, squinting at one photograph of the squad in particular.

"Booth, what is that?" she asked, pointing to a sparkly, streamer-clad purple-striped baton being proudly displayed in the photograph by a group of smiling girls. He approached the glass, looking down at the photo.

"It looks like… it looks like a spirit stick," he finally said, nodding his head. "Yeah, that's exactly what that thing is, a spirit stick."

"A spirit what?" Brennan asked, cocking a brow.

"A spirit stick, Bones. You know, they bring 'em out at pep rallies, the girls compete for it, you don't let it touch the ground. You've been to a pep rally, right?" Booth asked warily, seeming to know the answer before it was revealed.

"They didn't have those at my high school," Brennan said, shaking her head. "We didn't have a football team." A pained expression crossed Booth's face.

"Figures," he said with a sigh. "Well anyway, that's what it is."

"Do you think it's made of metal or PVC piping?" she asked, still squinting down at the photograph.

"I bet I know who could answer that question for you," Booth said, turning around and striding down the hall in the opposite direction. By the time Brennan realized he was moving he was halfway down the hall, and she jogged to catch up to him.

"Mary Collins," Booth said, knocking on her office door. It was open, and he let himself in. She was peering at a letter through bifocals when they entered her office, and it was the first time Brennan realized that she possessed shockingly blue eyes.

"Miss Collins, your cheerleaders partake in a series of annual events pertaining to a certain item of athletic paraphernalia known as a 'spirit stick', correct?" Brennan asked. Mary gave her a peculiar look, and nodded slowly.

"Uhm, yeah, we have a spirit stick, the girls use it at pep rallies to get everyone fired up," she said. "Why?"

"What kind of material is it made out of?" Brennan asked.

"Oh geez… paint, ribbon, glitter… you know, crafty stuff like that."

"Paint from an aerosol can?" Brennan asked.

"She means spray-paint," Booth clarified. Mary nodded.

"Yeah, other kind of paint don't stick to metal like spray-paint, plus it's easier to touch up with," she said.

"So the spirit stick is a metal pipe?" Booth asked for clarification. Mary nodded.

"Yeah, we used to use plastic pipe, but the girls kept snappin' them at practice, dropping 'em on the floor and stepping on 'em and what all have you," she explained.

"I thought the spirit stick wasn't supposed to touch the ground?" Brennan asked. Mary gave her a peculiar look.

"Well, no, it's not," she said. "But you know, accidents happen. That's like saying the American flag never touches the ground." Booth made a disgruntled sound, but shrugged and shook his head when Brennan and Mary turned in his direction.

"Anyway—" Mary continued, "—the metal pipe is a little tougher so it lasts longer, so we just use it instead. It ain't iron or somethin' like that so it's not that heavy. I think it's some kind of mixed metal."

"An alloy," Brennan corrected, and Mary nodded.

"Yeah, that," she said. "Still solid, but pretty light."

"Does it rust?" Booth asked.

"Does a bear sleep in the woods?" Mary replied. "I don't get it, what are y'all on the tail of?"

"Where is the spirit stick now?" Brennan asked urgently, ignoring her question. Mary shrugged.

"Dunno, actually. It went missing about a—oh God," Mary said, stricken with sudden realization. "Did they use it… to… oh God," she said, rubbing her temples with her thumb and middle finger. Booth made a grasping fist in the air and cursed under his breath—the same motion Brennan had become accustomed to seeing at times like these in their work, as if he were literally grasping for something that was just out of their reach.

"Where did you keep the spirit stick?" Booth asked.

"The storage closet with all the other stuff," Mary said, still shaken. "It ain't there but you can look again," she said, unsnapping a ring of keys from her belt loop and handing them to Booth. They trekked back into the gym and unlocked the closet, which was stuffed to the gills with pompoms, old uniforms, first aid kits, and cardboard signs among other things. They sifted through the cheerleading detritus for the better part of an hour but found nothing. As they repacked the items, Booth swore loudly.

"I know it's frustrating," Brennan said quietly, feeling the anger emanating from him as if it were tangible.

"Every time we get somewhere it's like we run into another damn wall," Booth said, stacking boxes of pompoms with entirely more force than was necessary. "Now we've got a crime scene we can't call a crime scene, a weapon we can't find, a guy we aren't even sure exists, and a murderer we can't I.D.," he said. "We've got nothing."

"We don't have nothing," Brennan said reassuringly. Booth scoffed.

"Oh, so what do we have?" he asked.

"Well," Brennan said, seating herself on one of the boxes she had just filled. "We have an approximate time of death, a near-positive I.D. on the weapon, an unofficial crime scene, and a potential size and gender description of the murderer."

"So basically we have a whole lot of guesswork," Booth said grouchily. "Yeah, we're doing great."

"It's not guesswork, Booth. It's scientifically-based hypothesis."

"And that's any better than a guess?" he asked, seating himself cross-legged on the floor next to her and looking up.

"Way better," Brennan said with a smile. "It's an _educated_ guess."

"Oh well excuse me, that _does_ make it way better," Booth said mockingly, fighting the grin that was creeping across his face. Brennan shoved his shoulder and he allowed himself to sway exaggeratedly, and the pair laughed.

"Don't give up yet, Booth," Brennan said in a serious tone when the laughter died down.

"Have I ever?" Booth asked, bringing himself to his feet and holding a hand out to Brennan to help her up. She took it.

"Not on me," she said, looking up at his eyes, then down at her feet. "Never on me."

--

**A/N:** Love it? Hate it? Thinking to yourself, "What the hell is a spirit stick?" Let me know! :)


	7. Somewhere Along in the Bitterness

**A/N:** Another very long chapter! It feels like once I get on a roll with one, I can't find a good place to stop... or at least a place I want to stop, which might be a totally different matter. :) Thanks to those of you who expressed concern for my health... I'm on half-way through the antibiotics, and if I don't see an improvement by tomorrow I have to go back to the doctor. Bleh. But if you want to make me feel better (and if you like this fic), you should check out the new B/B one-shot I wrote titled, "My Lady Luck." I'm kind of fond of it myself and would love to know what you think. :) And now I will end my shameless self-promotion. Read on!

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The next morning at the Jeffersonian the sun poured into the laboratory with the same renewed grit and spirit that had infected the team. The storms of the past few days had run their course, and beneath the renewing light the team was holding a powwow. They had pulled chairs in a circle around the exam table laden with their victim's bones, personal affects lay out on adjacent trays, each team member with some sort of file, x-ray, or lab report in hand.

"Let's start with what we know for fact," Brennan suggested, rallying the troops. Booth flipped open the folder he was holding, ankle rested on knee, revealing a set of star-spangled socks.

"Our victim is Sarah Nicole McLeod, born April third, nineteen eighty-eight, died May second, two thousand and eight," Booth recited from the chart. "Twenty years old, five foot six inches, employee of Little Angels Day Care."

"Sarah was most likely killed sometime between six o'clock on the evening of May first and two-thirty on the afternoon of May third, when she was officially declared a missing person," Cam read aloud. "She was last seen leaving the Baltimore Ravens' training facility at six o'clock PM on May first."

"If we can get a hold of whoever she had dinner with that night, we might be able to narrow it down more," Booth said.

"If she had dinner with anyone, they might have just been trying to throw us off," Brennan said, to which Booth shrugged.

"Yeah, but I don't think cheerleaders are that smart," Booth said.

"Watch it bub, I was a cheerleader," Cam said threateningly. Booth gave her an incredulous look.

"You were a cheerleader?" he asked. Cam nodded with a wry smile.

"I was a fly," she said. "Smallest girl on the team, easiest to toss up in the air."

"I was a cheerleader too," Stacy chimed in. "Captain of the squad my senior year."

"Shocker," Hodgins said sarcastically.

"I always hated the girls on the squad at my high school," Angela said. "I used to blow smoke in their faces at parties 'til they cried."

"What kind of smoke?" Booth asked impishly. Angela smirked.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she said, and Brennan cleared her throat loudly.

"Oh come on, it was the early nineties, we all know what kind of smoke it was," Hodgins said, rolling his eyes.

"Could we please focus on the facts of the case?" she asked. The group fell silent, and she continued reading.

"The cause of our victim's death was blunt force trauma to the skull by means of a slim, cylindrical metal pipe, painted," Brennan read from her records.

"A spirit stick," Booth said. Brennan shook her head.

"We don't know that for sure, though that does seem to be the most likely candidate at the moment," Brennan said. "But I don't want to narrow it that far down without the actual weapon, so for now it's a narrow metal cylinder."

"The particulates found in the bones and decomposing flesh placed the body in multiple places around her time of death," Hodgins said, scanning his lab work-up of the particulates. "Traces of industrial-strength cleaners were found on the body, used most specifically in areas where sanitation is most important to public health—hospitals, gyms, daycares, places like that."

"So she was killed at work or at the gym?" Cam asked, and Hodgins nodded, holding up a finger.

"But," he added, "The body itself was found in the woods approximately twenty miles outside of Owings Mills, nearly thirty miles from the victim's residence, and had been there nearly since time of death."

"So they dumped her body in the woods?" Stacy, who had previously been very quiet, asked.

"Well she didn't fly there, sweetie," Angela said. Stacy blushed, and Brennan smirked.

"So we need to find whoever she was with that night," Booth said, rising from his chair. Brennan nodded, also rising.

"Looks like it," Brennan said. "Cam checked the schedules of everyone at the daycare where the victim worked, and one of her male co-workers—David Burmen—took off early that night, at about five-thirty."

"Just in time to change and get to dinner at six thirty," Booth observed. "Alright Bones, let's go find David Burmen and ask him a few questions about the night Sarah disappeared."

"Can I come too?" Stacy asked, hopping to her feet.

"No," Brennan said curtly. Booth shrugged.

"I don't see why not, Bones," he said, to which Brennan gave him a sharp, disapproving look.

"Her presence during the questioning of a suspect would be neither necessary nor helpful," Brennan argued.

"We used to take Zack out into the field all the time when he was your assistant," Booth pointed out. At the mention of Zack's name, a tangible distress clouded the room. Angela looked away, Cam stared pointedly at the fingernails of her right hand, and Hodgins began snapping the rubber band that was now constantly present around his wrist. Brennan looked offended at the comparison between the two.

"I promise I won't get in the way, I just want to watch, I've never been to question a suspect before," Stacy begged. "I hear it's really intense, I want to be there for myself. I'll stay out of the way, I swear." Booth smiled at her.

"Sure," Booth said.

"That's my call, Booth," Brennan said. "And I want her here in the lab, looking for anything we might have missed."

"With all due respect Dr. Brennan, we've gone over everything at least three times, I think we've garnered all the information possible from the bones," Stacy argued.

"Says the person who completely missed our victim's identity by tossing aside her personal belongings," Brennan spat, causing Stacy's cheeks to flush pink.

"It would be a good learning experience for her, Bones," Booth argued.

"He's got a point," Hodgins said with a smirk, catching Brennan's eye. She glared hatefully at him, knowing full and well he only wanted Stacy out of his hair and his lab. Brennan looked to Booth, still giving him a formidable stink eye, and huffed loudly.

"Fine, but you stay out of the way the _entire _time, and you don't talk," Brennan spat, staring at Stacy like a festering sore. The girl beamed up at her, and turned to Booth, wrapping her arms around his neck in a large, unexpected hug. He patted her awkwardly on the back with his free hand, raising his brows in surprise.

"Thanks so much!" she said excitedly. "I'll get my bag!" With that she scurried in the direction of the lab room she now shared with Hodgins. Brennan turned to Hodgins.

"You're the devil," she said, and Hodgins simply smiled.

"Hey, she's yours, not mine," he said, laughing under his breath.

"She's not that bad, she's a sweet kid," Booth said, and before Brennan could formulate her response, Stacy was back at their ankles, bag in tow, grinning ear to ear. Brennan settled for an acidic glare at the back of Booth's head as he and Stacy began walking out of the Medico-Legal lab, leaving Brennan to pick up the trail.

On the drive to the suspect's residence, Stacy kept poking her head up front from the back seat, asking a plethora of questions.

"Does it ever get dangerous when you're questioning people?" she asked.

"Sometimes," Booth said. "But it's usually without warning, so they don't have time to plan an attack, and the majority of them are non-violent anyway."

"That still sounds scary, being so close to someone who might be a killer," Stacy said in awe.

"Yeah, sometimes it is, but you know, you gotta be tough," Booth said with bravado.

"You're so brave," Stacy cooed. "Dr. Brennan is so lucky to have a guy like you there to protect her." Brennan gritted her teeth, and Booth took due notice.

"Bones doesn't need anyone to protect her," Booth said quickly. "When we're in the field, she's got my back as much as I've got hers."

"Have you ever shot anyone, Dr. Brennan?" Stacy asked.

"Yes," Brennan replied shortly. "Even though the FBI won't issue me a gun," she added testily, staring at Booth.

"I've never even shot a gun before," Stacy admitted coyly, as if admitting to never having had her first kiss.

"Geez, never? I should take you out to the shooting range sometime, give you a lesson," Booth said, and Stacy beamed.

"Oh would you really?" she asked, and Booth nodded.

"Sure, everyone should know how to shoot a gun," he said, launching into a shpeal about the right to bear arms and gun safety laws that lasted for the remainder of their drive. Stacy listened with rapt attention, and Brennan had to control her gag reflex.

"Finally," Brennan muttered when Booth parked the car and she was able to escape the vehicle. They were parked outside of an inner city dwelling, fairly unkempt from the outside. Virginia Creeper crawled up the walls of the house, entangling themselves around the wrought iron bars that covered the windows. The yard was mostly without grass, and a dog barked loudly from the back of the home.

"Ew," Stacy said when she looked over the house, scrunching her nose. Booth approached the home, Brennan following shortly behind him, and Stacy brought up the rear. Brennan turned on her heel just before they reached the door, nearly nose-to-nose with Stacy.

"Do not speak," she said. "No questions, no observations, nothing. No words." Stacy nodded and Brennan stood just behind Booth as he knocked on the door, peering over his shoulder.

"FBI, open up, we'd like to ask you a few questions," Booth said, rapping his knuckles against the door. The dog around back barked more ferociously, and Brennan heard the sound of a chain being pulled taunt. The doorknob turned and the door cracked open, a hazel eye peering through.

"Who is it?" the male asked.

"Special Agent Seeley Booth, FBI, we'd like to ask you a few questions regarding the murder of Sarah McLeod," Booth explained. The man eyed him for a minute, seeming to size him up, then shut the door briefly, undid the chain, and opened it all the way. He stepped back to allow them in; the home looked just as disheveled inside as it had on the exterior. Dirty clothing, newspapers, empty beer cans and half-empty food containers littered the visible parts of the house, and the air was lightly tainted with the stench of sweat and dirty dishes.

"Sorry it's so hot, A/C went out last week," the man said, wearing only a pair of jean shorts, sweat rolling down his back. "Always happens that way; dog days of summer come, air conditioner farts out."

"Are you David Burmen?" Booth asked the man, who sat on the threadbare couch, looking up at Booth.

"Yeah, that's me," he said. "What do you want to know about Sarah?"

"Are you aware that she was murdered?" Booth asked. David nodded.

"I watch the news," he said. "Found her in the woods, right?" Booth nodded.

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about where she was the night she disappeared, would you?" Booth asked. David shook his head.

"Naw, not me," he said. "I didn't really know her."

"But you worked together," Stacy chimed in. Brennan turned to her, looking apt to spit nails, and Stacy pursed her lips together and stared at her feet.

"Technically," David said. "We both work… worked… at the daycare, but she worked with the kids all day. I just do handy-man stuff. You know, fix toilets, install lights, yard work, stuff like that."

"You do yard work?" Brennan asked skeptically. David smiled.

"Yeah, you wouldn't know it from out front, but who wants to come home and fix the yard when you did it all day already?" he said, rising to his feet. "Anyone want a beer?" he asked. Stacy opened her mouth as if to accept the offer, but another glare from Brennan prompted her to change her mind.

"So the two of you never really spoke beyond your usual hello's and how-are-you's?" Booth asked, and David shook his head.

"Nope, not really man," he said, walking back into the room with a beer bottle in hand, using his teeth to remove the top. Brennan grimaced.

"You know that's awful for your teeth," she said, and he shrugged, taking a swig.

"So can you explain why you took off work early the night Sarah went missing?" Booth asked.

"AA meeting," David explained, taking another sip of beer. Booth snorted.

"You expect me to believe that when you're sitting here in front of me with a beer in your hand?"

"Not alcoholics," David said. "Addicts. Cocaine. I'm trying to turn my life around, man. You know what I mean, right?" he said, and Booth nodded.

"Good for you," he said. "Can someone confirm that you were there that night?"

"Yeah, my sponsor Eddy," he said, rising from the couch and crossing the room to an end table overflowing with old mail, receipts, newspapers, and other detritus. He rummaged through the papers until he finally procured a business card from near the bottom of the stack with a name and phone number scrawled on the back.

"This is him?" Booth asked, taking the card and holding it up to read. It was an old realtor's business card.

"That's him," David said, taking the card lightly from Booth's grip and flipping it over to the back, where the name and number were written, handing it back to Booth. "You can call him up, man, he'll tell you. I haven't missed a meeting in two months. I'm clean," David said, holding his arms open as if allowing the world to examine the validity of his claim.

"Congratulations," Booth said. "We'll be sure to check on it. Do you have any idea where Sarah might have gone that evening, or who she might have been with?" David shook his head.

"Sorry man, I didn't see her at all that week," he said. Booth nodded, pocketing the card.

"Alright, thanks for your help," Booth said. David nodded, walking them to the door. "And congrats on getting clean," Booth added at the door. "Really."

"Thanks man," David said, shaking his hand and waving them out the door. They got into Booth's new replacement SUV and headed back towards the lab, when Booth suddenly smacked the steering wheel with his hand.

"God, how stupid!" he said, making a very illegal U-turn at an intersection. Brennan grabbed the oh-shit bar by the window and stared at him.

"What?" she asked. "What's stupid?"

"We've been thinking that since local police already searched her apartment for evidence, before the case got bumped to us, we wouldn't find anything there," Booth said, cutting across two lanes of traffic to get to the on-ramp. "But we haven't been through her computer, her date book, any of that stuff. Maybe she has a diary or a planner or something that might tell us where she went. God, how did we not think of that?" Brennan made a distinct "O" shape with her mouth and nodded, still clinging to the bar as Booth turned on the sirens. She watched the needle on the speedometer hit seventy, eighty, near ninety.

"Could you slow down?" Brennan finally shouted when the speedometer hit 100. "This isn't urgent, if she has a planner it isn't going anywhere!"

"No can do, Bones," Booth said, taking his eyes from the road briefly to flash her a grin. "It's adrenaline, I can't control myself, I want to get to that apartment and read that damn day planner. I need to know who Sarah McLeod was with the night she died. I need to know who killed that girl."

--

**A/N:** Wooooh, cliffhanger... I usually never write those because some part of me hates them. xD It's not even a very high one, it's more like a window-ledge hanger. Let me know what you think, reviews are love!


	8. Something is Scratching Its Way Out

**A/N:** Not a ridiculously long chapter this time! Still kind of long (2000+ words) but not as close to 3,000 as the last chapter was. x) I'm glad you're enjoying the Stacy/Bones/Booth action... now let's see what Sweets can do to stir the pot. Reviews are love, so keep 'em coming. :)

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Booth used his shoulder to force open the locked door of Sarah's apartment, lacking the key.

"If anyone asks, we had a search warrant," he said, flicking on the light switch. The lights didn't come on; the power had been turned off since nobody had been home in a month to pay the bill. Brennan walked to the window and pulled back the curtains, allowing the afternoon light to brighten the room. Sarah's apartment was the polar opposite of David Burmen's place; every surface was spotless, the only exceptions being a candle on the windowsill, and three magazines and a TV Guide fanned out on the coffee table. The sink was empty, the dinette chairs were all pushed in neatly, and further inspection would uncover a CD collection organized alphabetically, by genre.

"OCD much?" Stacy muttered as they searched through the girl's bedroom, which was as impeccably neat as the other rooms of her apartment. The bed was made, the desk was clear, and every picture frame on the wall was perfectly level.

"She looks like a girl with serious control issues," Booth said, carefully sifting through her bookshelf in search of any type of diary or planner. The contents of the bookshelf were also arranged in alphabetical order by author and title.

"Or dominance issues," Brennan added, attempting to access the files on the girl's computer.

"Dominance issues? Like, dominatrix type stuff?" Booth asked.

"No, not in a sexual manner. A person who is overly-controlling of their environment, obsessively arranging and organizing their belongings, is in a way asserting themselves over their dominion, asserting their alpha status," Brennan explained. "Although there is really no telling what her sexual interests might have been."

"Yes there is," Stacy said, pulling her torso out from underneath the bed and revealing a pink crop. She giggled and Booth laughed, Brennan rolling her eyes.

"I meant anthropologically," she said, searching the computer for any type of planning software.

"Hey, I found something," Booth said, opening the drawer of the bedside table and withdrawing a spiral-bound notebook stamped 'Planner'. He opened it up to the month of May, finding the first week.

"Yeah?" Brennan said as she peered over his shoulder.

"Aha!" Booth said, snapping the book shut suddenly. "Finally!"

"What?" Brennan asked, taking the book from his hand and flipping it open to the page he had been reading. Marked down in neat print in the six-thirty column of May 1st were the words, "Pre-tryout sleepover" with a long arrow that ran through the rest of the time slots for the day.

"So I was right about the murderer being a female," Brennan said. "Now we can safely narrow the list of suspects to left-handed women roughly sixty-six inches in height, who the victim may have interacted with the night of May first."

"Now that's what I'm talking about," Booth said, cracking his knuckles in one swift motion, unable to conceal his newfound cheer. "I knew we'd find something here."

"You were right," Brennan said with a smile. They pulled out of the apartment complex parking lot and merged onto the interstate, heading back to the District.

"Now we just have to find a southpaw cheerleader," Booth finally said after a good hour of contemplative driving.

"I don't know what that means," Brennan said.

"A lefty," Stacy clarified.

"Thank you," she said tersely.

"You a big sports fan?" Booth asked Stacy.

"Definitely," she said. "Football the most, but baseball is my second love."

"Yankees?" he asked, and Stacy smiled.

"For sure!" she said, and Booth nodded.

"Awesome!" he said. "Who knew a squint could be into sports?"

"I enjoy athletics," Brennan defended. "They offer a unique look into the anthropological imperative for competitive play amongst individuals of a species, much like the play fighting of—"

"See, when I said into sports, I meant the sports part of sports, not the science-y part," Booth said, cutting her off. "You're like those psycho-analyzing freaks who think that all male athletes are repressing some kind of…"

"Oh crap," Brennan said, looking at the clock. "We have an appointment with Sweets in fifteen minutes. I completely forgot." Booth swore and, not for the first time that day, made an illegal U-turn, turning them in the direction of Sweets's office rather than the Jeffersonian.

"You have to drop her off," Brennan said, jerking her thumb at the back seat. Booth shook his head.

"It's already going to take us half an hour to get there in this traffic, we don't have time," he said. Brennan raised an eyebrow.

"Since when have you cared about being on time to see Sweets?" she asked.

"I don't, I just hate being late," he said. "Besides, the sooner we get in and out of there, the sooner we can look for our cheerleader."

"You're making the assumption that our murderer is a cheerleader, but we don't know that for sure," Brennan said. "All we know is that she's a female, left-handed, roughly five and a half feet tall."

"Who she was staying the night with before open tryouts. That says cheer-pal to me," Booth argued. Stacy poked her head up from the back seat.

"I think it's a cheerleader too," Stacy piped in. Booth jerked his head in her direction.

"See, your assistant agrees with me," he said, smiling wryly.

"Well then it's a shame that her opinion carries absolutely no weight at the Jeffersonian," Brennan said, turning her head slightly and giving Booth the same smile he had just given her. Stacy sunk back into her seat and didn't speak for the remainder of the drive. When they reached Sweets's office, the three of them walked into the waiting room, Brennan and Stacy taking seats on opposite ends of a long couch while Booth signed on in the clipboard at the front desk and apologized for their tardiness. He sat between the two of them and had just started to become sufficiently uncomfortable when Sweets opened his office door.

"There you guys are, I was starting to wonder if you were going to show up at all," Sweets said, opening the door and beckoning them in. Stacy began to rise to her feet, until Brennan turned and gave her a sharp look that suggested her life would be made in many ways safer if she sat in the waiting room. Sweets shut the door behind them, and Brennan took a seat on the sleek leather couch. Booth started to sit next to her, but got the business end of the same angry look, and took a seat on a chair next to the couch instead. Sweets sat behind his desk, pulling out his notes on the couple.

"So what took you so long?" Sweets asked, flipping through the chart to a new session sheet.

"Working on a case," Booth answered when Brennan did not. "We're about to solve it."

"That's a ridiculous statement to make given that we still do not possess the murder weapon or have a definite crime scene," Brennan said brusquely. Sweets turned his attention to her.

"Dr. Brennan, you seem awfully tense today," he said.

"A valid observation," she replied, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

"She's being touchy because I took her assistant into the field with us today to question a suspect," Booth said, appearing to suppress the urge to roll his eyes.

"You took her assistant, Agent Booth?" Sweets asked for clarification. Booth nodded. "Isn't that her call, whether or not to take her assistant into the field, given that it's _her_ assistant?"

"Thank you!" Brennan said loudly, giving Booth a pointed look. "See, he agrees."

"You hate psychology!" Booth said.

"It's not psychology, it's common sense," Brennan replied. Sweets scribbled a few shorthand notes, and looked up at the pair.

"Wow," he said. "Sparks are certainly flying today." Booth and Brennan both turned and gave him comparable looks of distaste.

"I only mean," Sweets clarified, "that usually the two of you agree on the majority of authoritative decisions one makes on behalf of the other. Dr. Brennan, you generally believe that when Agent Booth makes a decision, he is doing so with your best interest at heart, correct?"

"Yes," she replied after a moment. "That is true."

"And Agent Booth," Sweets said, turning to Booth. "When Dr. Brennan makes a call on the case, without giving you a thorough explanation, you trust that she knows what she is talking about and that she is making a competent decision, am I right?"

"Yeah," Booth said, shifting in his seat.

"So Dr. Brennan, does it follow that when Booth made the call to bring your assistant into the field with the two of you, he had a reason for doing so that had your interests at heart?" Sweets asked. Brennan scoffed.

"The only 'interest' he had at heart was his interest in female anatomy," she said. Sweets looked at Booth with interest.

"Is that true, Agent Booth? Do you find her assistant to be sexually attractive?" Sweets asked.

"What? No! Not sexual, nothing sexual," Booth said, shaking his head. Brennan laughed derisively.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of if you do, Agent Booth," Sweets offered. "It's perfectly natural, healthy even, for a man who is not currently engaged in a monogamous relationship with a woman to be sexually aroused by other women."

"That has nothing to do with it," Booth hissed.

"So why did you demand we bring her?" Brennan asked, turning to face him.

"Because, if you have to know," Booth said, "I thought it would be a good chance for you to, you know, realize that just because she's not Zack doesn't mean you can shut her up in the lab all the time, Bones. That's not fair."

"Fair has nothing to do with it," Brennan spat back, turning the opposite way and averting her gaze to the window. It was early evening and the sky was exploding with the vibrant oranges and pinks associated with a Southern sunset.

"What exactly do you mean by that statement, Dr. Brennan?" Sweets asked. Brennan turned back to face him.

"Absolutely nothing," she said. Sweets shook his head, taking notes.

"You're shutting me out, Dr. Brennan. I can't help you if you aren't going to let me," he said. She gave him the sort of look a defiant teenager might give their parents, and Sweets pursed his lips.

"Alright, I can see this line of inquiry isn't going to go anywhere with you, Dr. Brennan. Agent Booth, could you elaborate on the situation with Dr. Brennan's new assistant?" Sweets asked.

"Bones is still upset about the whole… you know… and she's taking it out on her new assistant," Booth said, pointedly avoiding Brennan's harsh gaze. "And Stacy is a nice girl."

"She's completely incompetent, I don't know how she even attained her bachelor's, much less working towards a doctorate," Bones spat. "You're only attracted to her because she's a beautiful buxom blonde who is completely enamored with you." Sweets turned suddenly to Booth, and Brennan began to realize why a swivel chair was so handy for Sweets.

"A buxom blonde, eh, Agent Booth?" Sweets said playfully. "You didn't mention that!"

"Because it doesn't matter!" Booth shouted, rising to his feet. He took a deep breath and turned to Brennan.

"Look, I was only trying to help you out," he said. "You're the one who has this, this vendetta against your assistant because she's not Zack, but Bones, nobody else is ever going to be Zack! You have to let him go. Stacy's great and all, but there's nothing there for me, not with her." She stared at him for a long time, then turned back to the window.

"You don't have anything to say to that, Dr. Brennan? Agent Booth just said some very powerful words, surely you must be thinking—"

"I am thinking that I want to go back to the lab and finish this case," she said, cutting him off. "Any thoughts I am having beyond that are irrelevant."

--

**A/N:** Slightly abrupt ending to this chapter... your thoughts? I love feedback so let me know. :)


	9. Where Did I Go Wrong, I Lost a Friend

**A/N:** This chapter is written much differently than the chapters preceding... it is entirely first person, switched PoV's, and no dialogue whatsoever. Interested? Read on. :)

--

He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's butting into things that he should just stay out of. He has no idea what he's trying to unravel. There are some lines you just don't cross and he crossed them—even I know there are some lines you don't cross, and that's what he always says, is that _he's_ the people person, I'm the bones person. Deaf to the social cues of humanity.

Look at her. She won't even look this way, hasn't looked at me since we left Sweets's office. I know she's pissed, but she wanted the truth and damn it, I gave her the truth. She's the one all hell-bent on finding 'the truth' all the time. But the truth is that she misses Zack, she aches for him, and she won't admit it. Won't admit it to me, definitely, and I don't think she'll even admit it to herself. And that's heavy; that's one of those things you bury and bury and one day you end up shooting a clown on an ice cream truck because you can't take it anymore. Shit. Am I turning into Brennan, or is she turning into me? It's hard to say who rubs off on who more anymore. Or whom, I guess, would be grammatically appropriate. God, if she could hear me now… she'd be proud. But she won't look at me. Won't stop staring out the damn window.

She's so damn smug, sitting back there with that grin on her face like everything's fine. I guess everything _is_ fine in her deluded perception of what the rest of us call reality. She has no professionalism, no tact, and worst of all, no skill. I don't know what Dr. Goodman saw in her when he hired her… and what Booth sees in her. Well no, I _know_ what Booth sees in her… or rather, in front of her. Males are all the same, any species, it doesn't matter.

I wish she would just look at me. It wouldn't be nearly as bad if she would yell, scream, break out the window, or even just _look_ at me. I can handle her anger, I can handle her rage and her five-syllable words that go so far over my head they get frequent flyer miles. I wish she'd just call me a philistine and an ingrate and a moron and make fun of my inferior intelligence so that I could make fun of her social awkwardness and we could laugh and get some Pad Thai and maybe drink too much afterwards and be all right again. Be Booth and Bones again. But right now she's so cold and distant even though I could freaking reach out and touch her, and it feels like she's not coming back. I feel like I broke something and I don't know how to fix it.

I don't know how to fix it. I'm not used to that feeling. I can take the pieces of a skull, a hundred pieces of skull, and glue them back together overnight. I can look at a field of rocks and find a fetal bone, dig through a mile-wide marsh and find a phalanx. I can take something beyond recognition, something most people wouldn't even know was a bone, and reconstruct a life. But now Zack is gone and worst, all the things he's done… and I can't fix it. He left what Booth would call, "a hole in my heart" although the fact is that if I were to suffer from an Atrial septal defect or any comparable heart condition, Zack would be no more to blame than anyone else. But there is a definite emotional vacancy left in his wake, and I am not exactly sure how to compartmentalize this grief. I put away my parents' disappearance, my brother's desertion, my mother's death, Booth's faux murder… but I feel like I can't simply box this up and remove it from the forefront of my thought.

She does that all the time now. She stares out the window when we drive places, presses her face up against the glass so hard I feel like she's gonna fall out. Maybe she wishes she could fall out. There's no telling what goes on in her big head half the time, especially when she won't tell me. For someone with such incredible verbal skills, she sucks at communicating. Totally sucks. She used to talk to me when we drove around; well, argue with me mostly, but it was better than riding in silence. Now she doesn't talk, doesn't carry on a conversation. I try to get her engaged and she gives me these two-word answers, and doesn't keep up her end. What am I supposed to do, talk to a brick wall the whole time? Maybe I was wrong for bringing Stacy with us, for trying to make Bones accept her. I guess she needs more time, more space, than a normal person would. She has to come to terms with it her own way… but she's never going to if she won't look it in the eye and accept it for what it is. I don't think she's accepted it yet.

It's hard to accept what Zack did, what happened to Zack. Sometimes it's hard to even distinguish which one it is; whether it's what Zack did, or what happened to him. To me it feels more like the latter—I don't believe that Zack could have killed a human, destroyed a life, as Zack. Something happened, something changed the very moral foundation on which he laid his life. It happened to him. He did not happen to them. When Zack changes lives, he changes them for the better—he solves murders, he tells the victim's story, he testifies on behalf of their memory in court. Zack doesn't change lives for the worst, he changes them for the better. He changed mine for the better. At least, I thought he had.

I knew when he got back something wasn't quite right with the kid. Iraq's a tough place, war's a tough state to be in; I've been there, done that. For someone who sees dead people every day you'd think it would be different, but I guess it just goes to show Zack really was a human, even if he did act like he was from another planet half the time. I know what it's like, I saw half of my buddies go home in boxes. I smelled my own skin cook, heard my own bones break, heard the taunts in a language I couldn't understand, from unfamiliar faces in a foreign culture. I laid awake in the suffocating night, listening to AC/DC blared through the streets—it was a tactic to try and unnerve the insurgents. I know it's hard, and I know not all men make it out like they should. Some go home with trauma they'll never outlive. Some become drug addicts, alcoholics. Some become compulsive gamblers. Some let that stress—Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, they call it—take over their lives. But this, what Zack had, it wasn't post-traumatic stress disorder… more like post-traumatic psycho disorder. Something in him snapped… something we all tried to keep when we were out there. That kid reminds me every time I walk into the Jeffersonian how hard it was, and how some of us didn't come back with everything we left with.

I suppose Booth was trying to help—his heart is good, even if his brain is a step behind sometimes. And I should accept the truth, the facts—not what I want to happen, not how I want to feel, but the cold, hard facts. Because in the end, that's all that matters. What happened, what transpired, who died, and whose fault it was. Facts. Not opinions, not philosophy, not psychology, just facts.

I wish Bones would realize that for once, it's not about facts. Zack is a murderer, but that doesn't make him a bad person, not where it counts. I thought she came close with her dad, but in the end she rationalized the whole thing into some shpeal about evolution of a species and taking into account the change of whatever. Blah blah, squint talk for, "I can't rationalize my emotions but I'm gonna try my damndest." Her dad killed a man, killed more than one man, but she forgave him, she looked past that fact. I guess it's worse when it's one of your own—a fellow squint—than when it's just some joe on the street. Even if that joe is your dad. She tries to expect nothing from anyone, to keep from getting hurt, but she expected the world of Zack… and then he disappointed her. Shit, no wonder she's all inside out about the whole thing. That would be like… well, like me doing it.

I suppose the worst thing about it is that Zack wasn't just an average citizen, wasn't ignorant in any way. He was Zack; he was an anthropologist, a doctorate-holding scientist who devoted his life to truth and, I thought, justice. I held him to a higher standard, a higher set of expectations than most. I knew he could do better, I pushed him to do better, and he blossomed. I thought he had, anyway. Perhaps there was an aspect of him that I did not fully assess, an aspect of his psyche, the hard-wiring error in _Homo sapien_ that drove him to act outside the basic moral boundaries of the species. I must have overlooked something. I must have made an error in some way.

She told me to drop her off at her place, since that's where I got her from this morning. We had coffee, I had donuts, we talked about the weather. We acted like we hardly knew each other, after all these years of having each other's backs. We've acted like we hardly know each other. God I miss her, even though she's right there. She's there, but she's not. She opens the door and thanks me for the ride, and before I can get a word in edgewise she's halfway up the stairs of her building. She's gone.

When I got into the apartment I looked out the window, just to see if he was still there. He wasn't. A part of me, a stupid childish part of me, wished he would still be there; waiting for me. Waiting for me to turn around and apologize, waiting to make fun of my social ineptitudes, an act I have grown strangely fond of. Part of me wanted him to wait, but he didn't. I don't know that I would have turned around if he had, and perhaps it's better he didn't; it would be simply another thing to think about.

I wish she would have turned around. Said she was sorry. Let me say I'm sorry. Let me take her for dinner and coffee and let me make fun of Sweets even though I know it annoys her. Let her make fun of my IQ and my past-times and my alpha-male whatever even though she knows it annoys me. Let us annoy each other and laugh and be us again. But if she had, she would have had to talk to me—really talk to me—and right now, she won't do that.

I just want to talk to him, but I can't.

I just wish she would talk to me, but she won't.

I miss him.

God, I miss her.

--

**A/N:** Yay? Nay? Opinions on how close/far the stream-of-consciousness fit the characters? Let me know please! I thought I would close this fic out in 10 chapters, but apparently that's not going to happen... now it's looking more like 12-13. Somehow I don't mind though. :)


	10. It's Gonna Be a Long Way to Happy

**A/N:** This is a ridiculously long chapter... but I think you'll like it so I won't apologize! I got mixed signals on the last chapter; some of you found it confusing to follow, and I will definitely note that for future reference (I have an idea for another Bones fic cooking even as we speak). And speaking of past chapters... has anyone noticed anything special about the titles? They aren't just spiffy words. :) Now... on with the story!

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Booth lay on his back in his bed, staring into the dark ceiling. From the moment he had walked through the front door after dropping Stacy back at the lab he'd been replaying the actions of the day in his head, coming to a climax with the argument in Sweets's office. When he suggested Stacy come, when he defied Brennan's obvious wishes and brought her anyway, the glares, the angry exchanges, and her cryptic words to him: "Fair has nothing to do with it."

She wasn't fair to Stacy, but Booth hadn't really been fair to Brennan either. And life hadn't been fair to any of them. Brennan had once told him, "Fairness doesn't exist, even anthropologically speaking. There is no such thing as an entirely fair and just society, only some that come closer to the ideal than others." He had argued that God was fair and just, to which she had replied, "By giving me a job identifying murder victims?" He knew she wasn't trying to be insulting, she was just being honest, factual, objective Brennan, and in her world of science and facts, religion just didn't factor into the equation. Even though, he had still been unhappy with her for several hours afterwards, despite her pleas to reason.

Maybe this was where they were now. Maybe he had crossed a line, just like she had in the past so many times, and it hurt her. Maybe him trying to make her replace Zack with Stacy was like her trying to make him replace God with logic. Maybe it had been one big slap in the face.

He turned over, punching a dent in the center of the pillow and flopping his head down with a sigh. The curtains were parted, but the stars were hiding from the city lights, and the moon was new. The only light came from a street lamp by his home, glowing a rusty orange in the obscurity of night. It wasn't a particularly inspiring or sleep-inducing vision, so he turned to his other side and stared at the shadow of a tree splattered onto his wall by the streetlamp's glow. The night was stale, stiff, and the shadow did not move. It nearly appeared to be painted onto the wall until a rustle in a branch shook the image.

Finally, unable to just sit with his thoughts any longer, Booth hopped lithely out of bed and slipped on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt rescued from the dirty clothes hamper. Grabbing a twenty from the upturned plastic mini-helmet that served to hold money on his countertop, he slipped it into his pocket and grabbed the keys from the hook by the door. He convinced himself his actions were aimless, but he appeared to drive with some deliberateness towards the nearby florist. Although the shop closed at eleven and it was currently just shy of one in the morning, a light was on in the back room of the store. Booth rapped on the glass door incessantly until the employee—a fat, balding man in an apron—came to the door and pointed to the "Closed" sign.

"Can't you read?" he said aggravatedly, accent tinged with Jersey. Booth flipped out his FBI badge and showed it to the man.

"FBI, open up," he said. The man's face suddenly looked both confused and fearful, and he unlocked the door, bell jingling as he opened it.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize—what's the problem?" he asked.

"I need… flowers, daffodils," he said. Now the man was looking at him like he was stark raving mad.

"You break into my store in the middle of the night for some flowers?" he asked incredulously. "You couldn't wait 'til morning? We open at seven!"

"I didn't break in, you let me in," Booth said. "Now, how about the flowers?"

"Daffodils aren't in season anymore, they're more of a spring plant," the florist explained grouchily, walking across the room and opening a display of dozens of bouquets of flowers in various sizes, colors, and varieties. "How's about some roses?"

"No, too romantic," Booth said, shaking his head.

"Too romantic? Buddy, you busted up my flower shop in the middle of the night to get your lady some flowers, what about that ain't romantic?" he asked, beginning to laugh.

"You're wrong," Booth said, pointing a finger at the man, who stopped laughing.

"Alright, alright, geez buddy, settle down," he said.

"What else do you have?" Booth asked, peering over the man's bald head at the case of flowers.

"Roses, chrysanthemums, gladiolus, tulips, Hydrangeas…"

"What are those?" Booth asked, pointing to a bouquet of broad, blossoming golden-yellow flowers. He didn't know much about flowers, but daffodils made him think yellow, and those flowers were yellow.

"Asiatic Lilies," the man said. "I see where you're goin'… they're yellow, so close enough, right? You won't fool your lady with 'em, but they're a nice choice. How many?"

"However many you have," Booth said, pulling his credit card out of his wallet. This would cost more than 20.

"Oh buddy, you must'a screwed up big-time," the man laughed as he pulled out a dozen and a half yellow lilies, wrapping them in a sheet of shining plastic and tying them off with a pink satin ribbon. After Booth paid for the flowers the man walked him to the door, opening it for him as he exited.

"Thanks for your help," Booth said, giving the man a nod as he left.

"No problem pal; from what you must'a done, you're gonna need a lot of it tonight," he said, shutting the door after Booth and locking up. He waved him off as he got into the car, cranking the ignition. 1:12 AM.

"What the hell am I doing…" Booth thought to himself, shaking his head and driving in a familiar direction. On his way he passed a gas station called "Flipper's", open 24 hours, and hit the brakes when he looked in the window and saw, to both his slight amusement and horror, a giant stuffed dolphin hanging in the window. He knew they sold oceanic novelties—peculiar for a gas station in a non-coastal city—but this was ridiculously ironic. He made a U-turn and pulled into the gas station parking lot, leaving the flowers in the passenger's seat as he entered the small store.

"I want that," he said as soon as he entered, pointing up to the dolphin. It had brown plastic eyes that looked like they belonged on a stuffed dog, not a dolphin, and the fabric was bright aquamarine, and plush like a bear. From nose to tail it must have been four feet long. The mouth was stitched around the sides with a wide, perpetual smile.

"Not for sale," the pimple-faced kid behind the register said without looking up from his magazine. He reminded Booth of Sweets, but without the aura of intelligence, which made him possibly even more intolerable.

"What do you mean, 'not for sale'? It's hanging in the window," Booth said, gesturing towards the plush animal.

"It's a decoration," the kid said, looking up at Booth.

"I want it," Booth said stubbornly.

"You're not the first person," the kid said. "Go to the toy store and get your own."

"But I need it now," Booth said impatiently.

"Read my lips, mister: not for sale." The kid smirked, feeling authoritative, and Booth felt his blood boil.

"Okay, listen kid," Booth said, slamming his open FBI badge on the counter. "You sell me that damn dolphin or I'll put you in cuffs and take you to the station for obstruction of justice." The boy's skin flushed pink and he looked around wildly.

"What, why? What did I do?" he asked. "How am I obstructing justice?"

"Because if you don't sell me that dolphin, I'll shoot you," Booth said through gritted teeth. "Which means you would be responsible for a murder."

"That doesn't make any sense!" the kid said, his voice an octave higher than before. Booth smirked.

"Then I guess you'd better just sell me the damn stuffed animal," he said, holding out the crumpled twenty-dollar bill from his pocket. The kid took it and stuck it in his pocket, then pulled a step-stool out from beneath the counter and untethered the dolphin from the fishing line that was wiring it to the ceiling, repeatedly turning to cast a wary glance at Booth.

"Here, it's yours, congratulations," the kid said shakily, handing the animal to Booth. Booth didn't say anything, just took the animal under his arm and walked out of the store. He contemplated, as he let himself back into his vehicle, how ridiculous a grown man must look walking across a parking lot in the middle of the night with a four-foot aquamarine stuffed dolphin in tow, and laughed at himself, shaking his head. He really had lost his mind.

He began thinking of what to say when he knocked on Brennan's door. _Hey, I was just in the neighborhood and I…no, too cliché. I was out shopping and I saw this and thought of you! Hell, like she'd believe that, even if it was partially true…_ Before he realized it, he was sitting in the parking lot outside of her apartment building. He looked up to where he knew her apartment to be located, and was both relieved and sick to his stomach to see the light was on. Now he really had to follow through, lest she see him driving around her parking lot in the middle of the night. Creeper, much?

He sat in the parked car for a minute, mustering up the courage to walk up to her door with a bouquet of lilies and a giant stuffed dolphin and ask for forgiveness. It wasn't very often that he made displays like that to anyone, for anything. The last time he could remember being so worked up about something was when he asked Rebecca to marry him when she was pregnant with Parker, and she refused him. Then he asked her again… and she refused again. Would he be just as humiliated this time? Would she slam the door in his face, or worse, laugh at him for thinking he could buy her good virtues back with flowers and a giant dolphin? He didn't really think so, but would it look that way?

Swallowing back a throat full of bile, he began the trek up the steps, arms full of gifts. Between the giant bouquet in one arm and the dolphin in the other, he could hardly see where he was going, relying on muscle memory to tell him where to step up, where to turn. On her floor he stubbed his toe on a tacky and ill-placed stone frog outside of a neighbor's door and probably woke half the complex with a loud string of swear words, hopping on one foot in a semi-circle. When he regained composure and turned to face Brennan's door, he saw that the door was open.

Brennan stood in the doorway, nightgown half-covered by a silk robe, watching Booth with a bewildered expression. He realized then just how stupid he looked; spinning in circles, hopping on one foot, cursing like a sailor, with a huge bouquet of flowers in one arm and a giant stuffed dolphin in the other. What a sight.

"Did you want to come in, or are you trying to wake up _everyone_ in the building?" Brennan asked in a tone that Booth could not identify.

"I didn't wake you up, did I?" Booth asked. Brennan shook her head.

"I was still up, but I think you knew that before you walked all the way up here with… what _is_ that, exactly?" she asked, eyeing the stuffed animal as Booth walked through the door, Brennan shutting it quietly behind him. He took a few steps into the apartment then turned around, facing her. She stood with her arms crossed, looking him up and down.

"It's a, uh… it's a stuffed animal, Bones. You know, you must've had them when you were a kid, before the aliens took over your brain," he said. She frowned at him, and he mentally kicked himself.

"I only meant… I mean… I just saw it and I… here," he said, thrusting it towards her. She took it with both hands, holding it up and staring at it like she was scrutinizing a skull. She shook her head with a twisted smile on her face, sighing.

"I have never seen anything so hideous in my entire life," she said. Booth was nearly offended, until she laughed. Her laughter melted the thick layer of ice that had coated the room.

"Why d'you think it made me think of you?" Booth joked, and she mocked offense.

"Hey, you show up screaming at my door at one-thirty in the morning, and now you insult me?" she said, striding into the dining area and setting the dolphin on the table, turning to Booth with her arms akimbo. Booth shrugged and held out the flowers, walking towards her.

"I thought you might like these too, but if you're so insulted by my presence, maybe I should just—" he pulled the flowers just out of reach when Brennan reached for them "—take them back."

"Shut up," she said, taking the flowers when he finally relinquished them. "They're pretty; Asiatic lilies?"

"Yeah, actually. I know daffodils are your favorite but the guy said they're out of season and I didn't want ro—I didn't want some other kind of flower, so I got these 'cause I dunno, they look kind of like daffodils to me," he explained rapidly. Brennan looked at the bouquet and smiled.

"Not at all, actually, but they're still beautiful, Booth. Thank you," she said, robe fluttering as she walked past him, grabbing a vase from the top shelf of her cupboard and filling it with water. She placed the flowers in the vase and set it on the table next to the dolphin, stepping back to eye her gifts. She turned her gaze to Booth, who was still standing in the entrance of her kitchen, hands shoved in his pockets, rocking on his heels as if he had something to say but felt awkward saying it. They stared at each other across the kitchen for a moment before Brennan spoke.

"Would you like something to drink?" she asked, and Booth removed his hands from his pockets, rubbing them backwards over his severely bed-headed hair.

"Yeah, a beer if you've got one," he said. She nodded, removing two cold bottles from the fridge, and handing him one as she walked into the living room. They sat side by side on the couch and Brennan handed him her bottle to open. They sipped on their drinks for a minute, gazing around the room as if they had both by accident wound up sitting on her couch in the middle of the night, drinking beer and avoiding heavy conversation. Brennan broke the silence.

"I don't suppose you came over here in the middle of the night just to surprise me with flowers and an ugly stuffed animal, did you?" she asked, smiling as she pressed the bottle to her lips, taking another sip. Booth smiled, staring at his lap, resting the bottle in his hand next to his leg.

"No, not really," he said. She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak, and he looked up at her. They sat like that, face to face, staring, until Brennan smiled.

"What?" she asked.

"What do you mean what?" Booth asked.

"You said you had something to say," she said. Booth shook his head.

"I didn't say that," he said.

"Yes you did," Brennan argued. Booth smiled impishly.

"No, I just said I didn't come over here just to surprise you with flowers and an ugly stuffed animal. I never said talking had anything to do with it," he said. She hit his shoulder.

"You're awful," she said, rolling her eyes. He laughed and leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes.

"It used to always be like this with us, Bones," he finally said. She leaned back too, turning her head towards him, fingers laced in her lap. "We could joke and laugh and have fun, you know? I mean even when it was all business, at the end of the day we could still go to the diner and have a laugh or at least a meal together." He opened his eyes and looked at her, and she looked down at the couch cushions, biting her lip.

"I know," she said quietly. "But everything is different now."

"I'm sorry that I made you bring Stacy into the field with us today," he said. Brennan looked up again. "I shouldn't have done that."

"Thank you," she said quietly, pausing to collect her thoughts. "I'm sorry that I flew off the handle with you… you were only trying to help."

"But I was butting into things I should've left alone, Bones. How you deal with losing Zack is your business, and I was trying to hurry you up and that wasn't right of me, and I'm sorry, I really am," Booth said, and Brennan could sense the sincerity in his voice, in his eyes. They were soft.

"You were right today, though," Brennan said. "I'm being unkind to Stacy because I miss Zack and I… I know she isn't going to replace Zack, but that is why she was hired; as a replacement for Zack." Booth placed his hand on hers.

"Nobody could ever replace that kid," he said. "I mean it. I know I acted like I didn't like him, but really… he was a good guy. He _is_ a good guy. I miss him too." Brennan allowed his hand to stay on top of hers, looking up at the ceiling.

"How can I accept that he is a good person when he's done such bad things?" she said.

"You forgave your father," Booth pointed out. She shook her head.

"That was different. When he killed people, he did it to protect me, and Russ. He did it to save us. Zack… wasn't protecting anyone," Brennan said. Booth sighed.

"Bones, I'm gonna tell you something," he said, picking his legs up and sitting cross-legged on the couch, facing her completely. "And I just want you to follow me, got it? You might not understand, but you're just going to have to try, okay?

"Okay," she said hesitantly, turning so that they were face to face, her legs folded daintily beneath her like a fawn.

"Who you are, and what you do, aren't the same thing," he said.

"But I know that," Brennan said, and Booth held up a hand.

"Let me finish," he said. Brennan fell silent, listening. "Who you are and what you do, they aren't the same thing. A person is what they are, but they aren't what they do. What you do, sometimes that's part of who you are, but it's not actually _who you are_. You're Temperance Brennan, and you're a forensic anthropologist. But Temperance Brennan isn't a forensic anthropologist—Temperance Brennan is a person, before anything, and then that person is a forensic anthropologist. You got me so far?"

"I think so," she said. "Personal identity and occupation are not one in the same, correct?"

"Yeah, exactly," he said. "There are parts of you that make you like your job, that make you the best at your job. You're clever, you think a lot, you have this amazing sense of justice and, sometimes, you hold the weight of the world on your shoulders, and you just want to lighten that load a little bit by giving someone their dignity in death." He put his hand back on hers.

"That is who you are," he said. "That is the person you are, and you put the person you are into what you do. You put yourself _into_ it, but it's not who you are. If you stopped working at the Jeffersonian tomorrow, you'd still be that person, right?"

"Yes," Brennan said slowly, looking a bit flushed at the compliments she had just received.

"So putting together bodies, catching the bastards who did it—that isn't who you are, it's what you do. Temperance, it's the same for everyone. What Zack _did_, that isn't who he is, it's just what he did. It was a mistake, a huge one, but what he did doesn't change the person you knew, the person you _know_."

"But who we are is, to an extent, defined by our actions," Brennan argued, although her voice sounded a bit strained. "It's all fine and well to think you're a good person, but if you go around hacking people up, you can't still claim to be intrinsically 'good' because you think you're good inside."

"People like that think they're good, Bones, but they're not," Booth said. "People like Zack don't have to think they're good, because the rest of us know he's good, deep down. His heart is good, Bones. His soul is good. His actions weren't, his brain wasn't… but his heart is still good. It's okay to love Zack, Temperance—it's okay to love him, and miss him." He spoke with conviction, staring directly into Brennan's eyes as he spoke, trying with all the power within him to make her understand. She looked down at her hands, resting face-up in her lap, and blinked hard.

"I want so much to believe that, Booth. But he killed people."

Booth reached out and put his two fingers under her chin, slowly lifting it up so that they were eye-to-eye.

"I killed people, Temperance," he said, voice hard. "I killed them—not to protect myself, not to protect someone I loved. To protect my country, maybe; that's how we rationalized it. But it didn't feel that way, not really. When I pulled the trigger, when I saw their dead bodies hit the ground… I didn't feel like I was protecting anyone." He paused, taking a deep, settling breath. "I killed people, Temperance, but you forgave me."

Brennan tried to look away in time, but she wasn't fast enough—he had seen the tears forming. He reached out for her and she let him, leaning into his warm, solid form and snaking her arms around him. He pulled her into his lap and he let her cry, like a scared child, and she let him let her. He rubbed her back and she let the tears rain down on his shoulder, lungs bucking and heaving for air, body and soul wracked with grief. It almost scared him, how absolutely tormented and alone her cries sounded. It made him want to hold her closer, if even possible; remind her she was not alone.

They sat that way, folded up together on the couch, for the rest of the night. She finally cried herself into a fitful sleep, grip around his neck unrelinquished, and he held her in his lap and rested his head against the back of the couch, staring out the uncovered window.

Here, together, the stars had come back out. Never far from home. Booth allowed his face to turn to where her head rested against his shoulder, his nose touching her forehead, and let the smell of her lull him into a deeper sleep than he had ever known.

--

**A/N:** I dedicate this chapter, this whole story, to my friend Jackie. The six-month anniversary of her death just passed, and it's still hard to believe she's gone. God rest her soul.


	11. In the Belly of the Beast We Turned Into

**A/N:** I was thrilled to read your wild approval of Chapter 10! I guess nobody can resist a little B/B time, huh? This is not the last chapter, despite the seemingly final last words... there is one more chapter coming up before I'm done to kind of tie things up nicely... and who knows what little bits of goodness might transpire in those final paragraphs? :) And I have at LEAST two other ideas cooking in my brain right now... so if you like this fic, feel free to Author Alert me, because there will be more to come. Also, if you like my fanfic, check out my original work at FictionPress under the same pen name (kelisabeth). Now, enough shameless self-promotion... let's find our killer!

* * *

Booth's first conscious thought when he woke up the next morning was that there was an alarm clock buzzing that he wanted off

Booth's first conscious thought when he woke up the next morning was that there was an alarm clock buzzing that he wanted off. He tried to move his hand to bring it down on top of the machine, but realized two things: one, something very heavy was holding his arms in place, and two, his arms and shoulders was extremely stiff. The third realization came shortly after, that the alarm was in fact not next to his bed (although the one next to his bed was probably going off too), but in the other room—Brennan's bedroom.

His eyes flew open and the memory of the night before came to him in an instant when he looked down and saw Brennan still curled up in his arms, hair falling in her face and legs hanging daintily over the edge of the couch. Were it not for his extremely inability to listen to repetitive noises he would have chosen not to wake her, to go into work late, but listening to that alarm clock was like rubbing a cheese grater against his forehead. He shifted beneath her, causing her to stir.

"Sorry, I have to get that," he said, setting her down on the couch beside him and sprinting into the other room, bringing his fist down on top of the clock with rather more force than was necessary. He cracked his neck and stretched his arms behind his head, trying to rid himself of the "slept on it wrong" feeling that had taken over his entire upper half.

He took a leak and rubbed cold water on his face, and followed his nose to the kitchen, where Brennan was making coffee, hair still tousled, robe tied around her.

"Good morning," she said when she saw Booth, who gave her a grunt and a nod before sitting at the table. No number of years in the military could turn him into a morning person.

When the coffee finished percolating they sat at the table together with their respective mugs, sharing different parts of the newspaper. They took their time and were quiet—not the terse silence of the previous several days, just the comfortable quietness that falls over two people when they don't need to say anything in particular.

"Those are some damn nice flowers," Booth said, breaking the silence in admiration of the bouquet that sat between them on the table. Brennan looked up from the Daybreak section and smiled.

"Yeah, they are," she said. "Thank you, again; it was a thoughtful gesture."

"I'm surprised you didn't find it archaic and insulting," Booth said. Brennan shrugged.

"A little," she admitted. "Archaic, I mean. I didn't find them insulting." Booth smiled, and she smiled back, and the room seemed to brighten. They stared at each other from across the flowers for a little bit, then Brennan finally broke his gaze by turning her attention to the clock.

"We'd better get going," she said. "Cam will wonder where we've been." Booth nodded and stood up, taking his mug to the sink and rinsing it out. When he turned around Brennan was watching him peculiarly.

"What?" he asked.

"Well, won't you have to go home and change first?" she asked, gesturing to his dirty jeans and wrinkled t-shirt. Booth shrugged.

"I've got a change of clothes at my office, we can go there after we stop by the lab to tell Cam where we're going." Brennan nodded and handed him her mug as she walked past him.

"I'm going to change, I'll be ready in a few minutes," she said. He nodded and she walked into her room, closing the door behind her, leaving Booth standing at the sink with her mug of coffee. He took a sip and made a face; she took it with way too much sugar and cream. He dumped the crap coffee down the drain and rinsed her mug, then sat on the couch and pretended to watch the nonexistent TV until she emerged.

"You should really get a TV," he grumbled as they walked down the stairs. Brennan shook her head.

"I don't need one, I read," she said. Booth rolled his eyes and smiled; there was no arguing with her about it. Without asking or being asked, Brennan walked to the passenger's side door of Booth's SUV, waiting for him to unlock it.

"So I'm giving you a ride?" he said as he unlocked the doors. She shrugged.

"If you don't want to I can drive myself," she said. Booth shook his head.

"No that's fine, I was just wondering," he said with a badly concealed smile, bringing the engine to life.

When they reached the Jeffersonian they walked in together, Brennan dressed to the nines as usual, Booth looking a bit more disheveled, and Cam greeted them.

"You're late," she said, and then noting Booth's appearance added, "And what happened to you?"

"Long night," he and Brennan replied simultaneously. Cam raised an eyebrow and smiled.

"I guess I didn't really need to know that," she said delicately, turning and shaking her head as she walked off.

"I didn't mean we had engaged in intercourse!" Brennan shouted after her, trying to clarify. Angela peered out of her office, eyebrows raised.

"Who engaged in intercourse? Do you want to tell me something, sweetie?" she asked, seeing Booth's rumpled clothes and the flush that was now creeping up on both of their faces.

"Nobody, Angela, I was trying to clarify to Cam that her presumptions are inaccurate," Brennan explained.

"So what happened to you?" Angela asked Booth, a cynical smile playing across her lips.

"Long night," Booth said. Angela smirked.

"I bet it was," she said playfully.

"It was," Brennan said, not realizing the implications of her statement. When she did, her mouth formed a small 'o'.

"I didn't mean that it was a—" Brennan started, but Booth stopped her.

"Don't worry about it, they'll figure it out, you get your squint stuff together and I'll go tell Cam where we're headed. Meet me back at the car," he said, walking in the direction Cam had taken off in.

They met back at the car shortly thereafter and Booth pointed it towards the highway.

"So, back to the training facility?" Brennan asked as Booth drove. He nodded.

"One of those girls did it, I'm telling you right now. Somebody's lying—I don't know if the girls who said she was going out to meet that guy were intentionally leading us in the wrong direction, or if Sarah McLeod told them she was meeting him but didn't."

"Either one is plausible, but why would the victim lie?" Brennan asked. Booth shook his head.

"Could've been anything, Bones. Teenaged girls are weird like that."

"She wasn't a teenager, she was twenty years old," Brennan corrected.

"Doesn't matter, she was one of _those_ girls, she probably had the social maturity of a teenaged girl still."

"How would you know that?" Brennan asked. "You've never even met the girl."

"I'm just saying, it's a cheerleader thing," he said. "It's all drama with them."

"Theatre has nothing to do with cheerleading, actually," Brennan argued. Booth made a face caught between a smile and a grimace.

"No Bones, I meant they're dramatic. They make little things out into big ordeals," he said.

"Anyway," Brennan said, bringing their conversation back to the case. "Either the girls lied intentionally to cover something, or Sarah was hiding something from them, correct?"

"Yeah, exactly. So we have to go in, ask some hard questions, and catch someone in a lie."

"Sounds easy enough," Brennan said.

"Let's hope so," Booth said.

When they reached the training facility, the girls were practicing their tumbling; mats were laid out across the waxed gym floor and girls were stretching, jumping, and twisting in all directions.

"They seem to be here an awful lot," Brennan observed as they walked across the gym.

"Five days a week in the off-season," a familiar voice informed. Booth and Brennan turned around to see Mary Collins catching up to them.

"Five days? That seems a little extreme," Booth said. Mary shook her head.

"That's how great squads are made, Agent Booth. Five days a week during the off-season, an hour of tumbling in the morning, two hours of cheer and dance practice in the evening. Six days a week during the regular season," Mary explained. "So can I help you two with something?"

"We need to speak to the girls on the squad individually," Booth said. Mary nodded.

"You can use my office if you like," she offered, handing him the key. "I'll be in the weight room if y'all need anything." She left, and Brennan and Booth watched the cheerleaders, deciding what the best course of action would be.

"We don't need to ask her," Brennan said, pointing to an extremely small girl who was back-handspring-ing her way across the gym. "She's too short."

"What about her?" Booth asked, pointing to another girl. Brennan shook her head.

"Also too short. We're looking for a girl who's at least five feet, six inches tall," she said.

"Right, gotchya," Booth said, sizing up each girl in the group. He identified six who matched the height description. One of them was Bonnie, the girl they had originally spoken with who pointed the finger at Faith Gibbons.

"Let's talk to her first," Booth said, eyeing Bonnie. Brennan scrunched her brows.

"Why?" she asked.

"Just follow my lead, okay?" he said, walking up to her. Brennan followed.

"Bonnie Simmons," Booth said, flipping open his badge. "Agent Booth, Temperance Brennan. We talked to you the other day about Sarah McLeod's death."

"Right, I remember," she said, approaching them amiably. "You were the ones asking about who might have done it. Did you talk to Faith?" she asked, lowering her voice.

"We did, Bonnie, but her alibi checks out," Booth said. "Speaking of which, where were you the night of Sarah McLeod's murder?"

"I was here," she said. "Me and some of the other girls were getting in one last practice before try-outs the next day. Coach Collins kept the gym open until about eleven."

"Did Sarah come to the extra practice?" Booth asked. Bonnie shook her head.

"No, she didn't. I guess she didn't think she needed it," Bonnie said, almost bitterly. She quickly regained her sweetness though and flashed them a sorrowful frown. "If she had, maybe she wouldn't have ended up… you know."

"Bones, go get Mary Collins for me please," Booth said. "You stay here with me," he added, looking at Bonnie. Brennan found Mary in the weight room as promised, and lead her back into the gym to where Booth stood with Bonnie. He had the 'look' on his face, like he could smell a lie.

"Miss Collins," he began, "Do you remember the girls who attended your late-night practice the night before open try-outs?"

"Sure I do," Mary said, taking her sunglasses off and looking Booth in the eyes. "It was Bonnie, Claire, Celeste, Samantha, Faith, Sarah—"

"Sarah as in Sarah McLeod?" he asked, turning to Bonnie, who was beginning to look nervous.

"Yeah, the very same," Mary said, looking confused. "Why, how is that important?"

"Were you the last person present at the facility that night, Ms. Collins?" Booth asked. Mary shook her head.

"I left about ten-thirty; I'm an old gal, Agent Booth, I can't stay up that late. I left the keys with Bonnie; she promised she'd lock up afterwards. Looking back now it was unprofessional, but I was tired as hell and I'd TiVo'd Desperate Housewives that night and wanted to watch it. Why, how is this important?"

"Which hand do you write with, Bonnie?" Brennan asked.

"Both," she said. "Ambidextrous, ever since I was a kid. Why?"

"Have you ever played softball?" Booth asked. She nodded.

"When I was younger, yeah, before I got into competitive cheer," she said.

"Where were you on the batting line-up?" Booth asked. Bonnie held up three fingers. "So you were pretty good then?" he asked. She nodded.

"I don't see how that's important," she said. Brennan walked up to Bonnie, standing very close to her, nearly nose to nose. Bonnie took a step back and Brennan stepped towards her again.

"Stand still," she said, looking down her nose at the girl. She then looked over to Booth. "She's the right height," she said.

"Right height for what?" Bonnie asked warily.

"You see Bonnie, when someone gets killed, the FBI has special equipment we can use to figure out just how tall and strong the killer was," Booth said.

"That's actually not the FBI's equipment, it belongs to the Jeffersonian," Brennan corrected, and Booth waved her off.

"Whatever. We have connections, and we know that the person who killed Sarah was a woman, about five and a half feet tall… how tall are you, exactly?" he asked, and Bonnie's face blanched.

"We also know that Sarah's killer was left-handed," Brennan said. "They used a long, narrow metal cylinder—"

"Like a spirit stick," Booth interrupted.

"—And swung it like a baseball bat at her face, cracking her skull and knocking her out."

"And then her brain was toast," Booth said. "She stopped breathing and she died." Bonnie's eyes were welling up with tears, and she shook her head.

"You knew there were limited spots left on the squad," Booth said. "You knew Sarah was better than you, and you'd do anything to make sure you made the squad. You hung around until you were the last people there that night, you told Mary to go so you could be alone with Sarah, and when she was in the weight room you went back to the supply closet, and what was the first thing you found?"

"A spirit stick—long, metal, sturdy but light. Swings like a bat," Brennan said. Bonnie had turned, if possible, an even lighter shade. Mary's mouth was agape, blue eyes widened.

"Exactly. You went back into the weight room and she was facing the opposite direction, but she saw you in the big mirrors coming at her. When she turned around, you swung," he said. "And it was a good swing, perfect contact, and she died. You loaded her body into your car, dumped her in the woods outside of town, then came back and scrubbed the whole place down with the supplies from the janitorial closet."

"No, no, it wasn't… I didn't…" Bonnie said, trembling. "I didn't mean to… it was an accident," she wailed, tears spilling down her face. Booth walked around her and placed her hands behind her, cuffing her wrists together.

"She was just so mean," Bonnie bawled. "She kept saying how I was f-f-fat and I was never gonna make the squad. I just c-couldn't take it," she hiccupped. "I didn't mean for her to d-die, I just wanted to make her ugly. When she didn't wake up, I called Karen and told her Sarah was meeting a guy instead of c-c-coming over to her house later. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for her to die," Bonnie lamented.

"Bonnie Simmons, you are under arrest for the murder of Sarah McLeod. You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…" Booth listed her rights to her as he walked her to security, who would call local police, who could take jurisdiction from there. They walked out of the gym, leaving Brennan with Mary Collins.

"This is my fault," Mary said quietly. "I gave her the keys, I didn't think a thing of it. I should'a known." Brennan did not respond; she didn't know what to say. She knew that yes, to an extent it was Mary's fault for giving Bonnie the opportunity, but something in her said that agreeing would not be the sensitive thing to do. So instead they stood in silence, until Booth returned for Brennan.

"Local police have her in custody now, our job is done," he said. "Let's go." Brennan gave Mary Collins a nod as they left, leaving her with a group of extremely confused cheerleaders.

"I always knew cheerleaders were crazy, but sheesh," Booth said as they drove back to the District. "Killing a girl because she called you fat? That's a little extreme."

"You would say that as a male. You have no idea what kind of pressures society puts on young girls; the pressure to be tall, thin, conventionally beautiful, well liked. Those kinds of pressures can be overwhelming for girls, and for someone as mentally unstable as Bonnie Simmons, those pressures can cause a person to act out irrationally."

"You mean snap," Booth said. "There's acting irrationally, and then there's that point when you just snap. She snapped." Brennan nodded.

"Yes," she said. "She snapped."

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**A/N: **Reviews are love, you know what to do. :)


	12. Take What I Left You For the Pain

**A/N:** This is it, the last chapter! I know the case is officially done with but I wanted a nice little wrap-up for everything, because I felt like I needed the closure on this one. And of course, I had to appease the B/B beast in me, even just a little. :) Thank you so much to everyone who has consistently read and reviewed this story, and those who favorited it and put it on alert. You don't know how much it means to me to know that you enjoy my writing, that you actually want more. It's a great feeling. So thanks again, and like I said before, if you like this one... there are more Bones fics on the horizon! So now I will let you finish, and hope that you like what you read... because I know I like what I wrote. :)

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"Are you ready Bones?" Booth asked as he rounded the corner the next evening, heading towards her office. He could see her in the hallway walking to Angela and was relieved to see that, while perhaps not ready, she was at least not elbow-deep in human remains.

"You ready?" he asked again as he came closer to the two. Brennan turned to him and nodded.

"Yes, I was just… yeah, I'm ready," she said. "How do I look?"

"Somber," Booth said.

"Is that bad?" she asked. He shook his head.

"No Bones, you're going to a Vigil, you're supposed to look somber," Booth explained, knowing full and well that she had probably never been to any sort of viewing or funeral in her life.

"I've just never been to one of these," she said, as if reading his thoughts. "I still have that dress you bought me in Vegas, but I thought it might be too…"

"Yeah, this one is better," Booth said, giving Angela a wave as they walked out of the building. It was simple and discreet, and she wore a sweater around her shoulders to cover her. "Very tasteful," he added. She smiled.

"I'm glad it meets your approval," she said, in a tone that Booth couldn't decipher the seriousness of.

The long summer sun hung low in the sky as they drove out of the parking garage, Brennan with her hands resting in her lap. She split her focus between the world outside of the car and the world in her hands, eyes flicking from one to the other. Eventually her eyes settled on her upturned palms, one laid gently over the other, consumed in thought. Booth took notice, but allowed her a decent fifteen minutes of silence before inquiring.

"Everything alright Bones?" he asked. She snapped to attention, looking up at him as if she had forgotten he was there.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, nodding her head unconvincingly. She looked out the window and saw that they were approaching the funeral home. At least twenty vehicles were parked in the parking lot in front of the building.

"Wow," she said as they parked near the back of the parking lot, Booth shutting off the engine and leaning back in his seat for a moment before removing his seatbelt.

"What, the people?" he asked, looking at her. She nodded.

"I didn't know there would be so many," she said, stepping out of the car. He fell in stride next to her as they crossed the paved lot, shadows lagging long behind.

"Catholics don't do anything small," Booth said, a wry smile on his face. "Ever been to Mass?" Brennan didn't answer, a silence which Booth assumed was a no.

They walked into the parlor, which was packed to the gills with flowers and cards expressing condolences. Two small boys in equally small suits brushed against Booth's leg as they ran by, soon to be caught and reprimanded by an elderly woman who reminded Booth very much of a school nun from his elementary years. She looked up and gave the pair a strained smile.

"I apologize," she said, accent betraying her country of origin. Her bright red hair was streaked with chunks of grey, mostly covered by the black scarf wrapped around her head in traditional observance. "Boys will be boys, you know."

"It's fine," Booth said. "We're so sorry for your loss." The woman's eyes grew wet, but she blinked it back with the self-control of a seasoned pro. She nodded, swallowing hard before speaking.

"She was my eldest grandchild," the woman said. "I remember the day I first held Sarah in m' arms. Cute as a button, then and now," she said softly, stolen by reverie. Booth nodded with pursed lips.

"Again, truly sorry for your loss," he said, patting the woman's arm as she was lost to her thoughts, leading Brennan through to the viewing room. The parlor was narrow and long and, when it seemed like Booth might lose Brennan in the crowd of mourners, he reached for her hand to guide her.

When they entered the room where the Vigil itself would take place, they found the victim's mother seated next to the casket, which was closed. A picture of Sarah was placed atop the closed casket surrounded by candles, flower petals, and a rosary. Booth approached the mother.

"Mrs. McLeod?" Booth asked. The woman looked up, tears streaming down her face, a handkerchief pressed to her eye. She nodded.

"Agent Seeley Booth, Dr. Brennan and I worked your daughter's case," he said, and the woman nodded.

"I remember you," she said. "Thank you for coming."

"We're so sorry for your loss," Brennan said, following Booth's previous lead. The woman sniffed loudly, nodding.

"Thank you," she said. "Really, thank you—for giving us closure." Brennan nodded, feeling an odd lump rise in her throat. She swallowed it back and cleared her throat loudly.

"I'm going to step outside," she whispered in Booth's ear as she walked past him, snaking a path back through the parlor and out the open front door. She wrapped her arms around herself, despite the muggy evening air, and walked the perimeter of the building. A few children chased one another in the grass outside of the funeral home in bare feet, socks and stiff patent-leather shoes abandoned in a pile at the corner of the parking lot.

Brennan recognized those shoes; they were like the ones her parents used to make her and Russ wear on special occasions. The shoes that were always stiff from lack of use, that they only wore a few times before outgrowing them. The like-new shoes they always took to the Good Will across town, Brennan feeling sympathetic for the next kid who had to wear them. They were wedding shoes, church shoes, recital shoes. Funeral shoes, though Brennan had never been to any funerals in her memory. Her parents had told them that they had no other family, and therefore, no funerals to attend.

She found her way to a wrought-iron bench around the back of the building and took a seat, arms still gripped around her body. The bench overlooked the vast cemetery beyond, hills dotted with tombstones of varying shapes, sizes, and ages. Some were adorned lovingly with flowers; others stood bare. She imagined the people buried there—men, women, children even. Husbands, workers, wives, mothers. Those who had lived extraordinary lives, and those who had never really lived at all. Some who were so old when they died that they already appeared to be halfway through the decomposition process. Others buried in tiny caskets, with tiny suits and tiny patent-leather shoes.

She wondered how many of them she had given back faces, lives, if any. Surely she could lay claim to restoring the humanity of at least one of those skeletons? There had to be hundreds. Hundreds of dead bodies. While the idea usually put her in the mood to examine remains, today she just felt hollow at the thought. As that feeling began to settle in her stomach, she realized someone was sitting next to her. Someone small.

"What's your name?" the little tow-headed boy asked, dark eyes staring expectantly up at Brennan. She was somewhat taken aback and did not answer immediately.

"I'm James," the little boy said, putting out a hand. She looked at it for a moment, then took the small hand in her larger one, shaking it.

"Hi James, I'm Dr. Brennan," she said. The boy immediately withdrew his hand.

"Doctor? You en't gonna give me a shot, are ya?" he asked, worry knitting his brows together. Brennan smiled and shook her head.

"No, James, I'm not that kind of doctor," she said. The boy relaxed, gripping the edge of the bench with his hands and kicking his bare feet in the air. He looked back up at her.

"I don't like these," he said.

"Funerals?" she asked. He shook his head.

"Vigils," he said. "En't a funeral, that comes later." Brennan nodded, mouth forming the small 'o' it often did when she learned something new. "I bet you been to a lot of 'em, haven't you?" he asked. Brennan shook her head.

"Never, actually," she admitted to the boy, whose eyes grew wide in disbelief.

"No way," he said, astonished. Brennan nodded.

"Yes way," she said.

"Boy, you sure are lucky," the little boy said. "This is my third."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Brennan said, not sure how lucky that made her. The boy kicked his legs harder.

"Yeah. First my great-gram, then my Poppa, now my cousin," he said, listing them on the small fingers of his right hand. Brennan felt sorrow for the boy; he couldn't be more than six or seven years old.

"I'm sorry," she said. He shrugged.

"They're in heaven now, with the angels and the Saints and Jesus and Mary and God," he said in one big breath.

"Oh," was all Brennan said.

"I hope," the little boy added, eyes filled with worry. Brennan touched his head with her hand.

"I hope so too," she said, and her words seemed to put the boy at ease. He stood and put his hand out again.

"Well I'm gonna go, it was nice meeting you Doctor," he said with all the poise and professionalism of an adult and with none of the size. She smiled and shook his hand, and nodded.

"You too, James," she said, and the boy was gone. No sooner had he left than she saw Booth's large form come around the corner of the building, nearly tripping over a gaggle of girls decked in lace and satin, all giggles and curls. He stepped back as they ran past, shaking his head as he took the seat previously occupied by the little boy.

"Kids," he said. "They're nuts."

"I just had a very interesting conversation with one," Brennan said. Booth snorted.

"I hope you didn't scare him," he said.

"Why would I scare him?" Brennan asked. Booth rolled his eyes.

"Oh I don't know, all of your talk about decomposing bodies and murder weapons might scare a kid off," he joked. She smiled, looking down at her hands.

"No," she said. "He did most of the talking. Sarah was his cousin." Booth frowned.

"Kids shouldn't have to deal with this kind of thing," he said, his previous light-heartedness giving way to a serious tone. "Death, murders, funerals… it's too much for them. Hell, it's too much for me half the time." Brennan nodded, looking out at the tombstones again.

"He's been to three," she said, recalling the boy's list. "He couldn't believe that I've never been to a funeral."

"Well it's not normal, Bones," Booth said. "Most people your age—"

"Watch it," she said.

"—have been to at least one funeral," he finished. "They've had at least one person they cared for pass away."

"I lost my mother," she said quietly. "We just never had a funeral." Booth, at a loss for words, put his hand on her forearm and squeezed reassuringly. She appreciated the gesture.

"Maybe you should have one," Booth suggested. Brennan shook her head.

"For what? And for who? The only people who would come would be me, my father, and Russ. Maybe Russ's girlfriend."

"And me," Booth said. Brennan looked up at him curiously. "I'd come."

"You didn't know my mother," she said warily. "Why would you come?"

"I know you," he said. "That's enough of a reason. I'd come, and Angela and Hodgins and Cam, they'd all come too. And Sweets, and Caroline, hell Stacy would probably even show up." Brennan looked at the ground.

"Why?" she finally asked, looking up at Booth. "Why would all those people come to the funeral of a woman they didn't even know, don't even care about?"

"Because of you, Bones. To support you. Believe it or not, a lot of people really care about you," he said. "And that's what you do when you care about someone; you're there for them. Just like I'm there for you, just like you're there for me. That's just what you do." His hand slid down her arm and found hers, and she allowed her head to fall on his shoulder.

"We used to go to church," she said, breaking the silence. She picked her head up and looked at Booth, who looked somewhat shocked.

"Really?" he asked. She nodded.

"Every Sunday," she said. "We went to the Methodist church down the street from our house, rain or shine. When it was nice we walked," she recalled.

"When did you stop going?" Booth asked, fearing he knew the answer before she gave it.

"When my parents disappeared," she said. "After that, Russ refused to go, and I just didn't have the heart to go alone. I didn't think anyone was listening anyway." She looked out into the cemetery, avoiding Booth's gaze. He sighed.

"I'm sorry Bones," he said. "I really am. That's a tough way to lose your faith."

"Why do you believe?" she asked. Not accusingly, not insultingly, just a question. Booth didn't answer for a moment, seeming to contemplate the question.

"Miracles," he said simply. Brennan raised her brows.

"Miracles?" she asked. He nodded.

"Miracles."

"What kind of miracles?" she asked. Booth leaned back against the bench and smiled.

"Every day miracles, Bones," he said. "The kind you take for granted every day, the ones science doesn't have a reason for. When you look at your little boy and see him smile just like you. When you joke with your partner over coffee and she doesn't get it, which makes it even funnier. When you give a body, a pile of bones, a name and a face and a reason for being on this planet. When, despite everything standing in your way, you make them a person again. That, Bones, is a miracle."

"That's science," she argued. "The last one, that's science."

"No Bones, it's a miracle," he said. "Using DNA or dental records to identify a person, that's science. But giving them a name, a life? That's a miracle. You are a miracle, and I thank God every day for you, and not just because of what you do."

His grip on her hand tightened and she squeezed back, breath caught in her chest. She couldn't remember the last time someone had made her feel so important, so wanted, so thankful to be alive. His fingers laced between hers and she let them, feeling electricity crackle up her arm and down her spine. She shivered in the heat, unable to tear her eyes from his. As if something beyond their control held them together in that moment.

Booth gulped, and she mimicked the action. He leaned towards her. She bit her lip. He got closer. She tilted her head. He was so close now; she could feel the heat from his breath on her face.

It was soft, warm, and quick. Not more than a few seconds. When it was over they touched foreheads, eyes locked.

"I don't believe in miracles," Brennan whispered.

"So what do you believe in?" Booth asked. Brennan smiled.

"I believe in you."

**Fin**

* * *

**A/N:** It's done! Aaaah! And for those of you who guessed correctly... yes, the titles of my chapters are all snippets of lyrics from various songs that I like, and/or that I felt fit the mood of that chapter in particular. So now, in the interest of crediting the artists, I will list the songs by chapter.

1. Can't Be Saved - Senses Fail

2. Calling All Angels - Train

3. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service

4. Dead Wrong - The Fray

5. I'm Not Dead - Pink

6. Bitch - Meredith Brooks

7. How to Save a Life - The Fray

8. Little House - The Fray

9. How to Save a Life - The Fray (again)

10. Long Way to Happy - Pink

11. I'm Not Dead - Pink

12. Calling All Cars - Senses Fail

Again, thank you so much for reading this fic. :) As you know, reviews are love, so humor me this one last time on this fic. For now, adios, and I hope to hear from you again in the future.

Best,

K. Elisabeth


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